Dollar is around R$4.72 after tense eve

The dollar hovered around stability against the real shortly after opening this Thursday (7), on a day of milder weather in international markets, which suffered the day before with an aggressive positioning by the US central bank in the minutes of its last meeting. .

At 9:05 am (GMT), the spot dollar advanced 0.07%, at R$ 4.7180 on sale.

On B3, at 9:05 am (GMT), the first-maturity dollar futures contract dropped 0.14% to R$4.7450.

The spot dollar closed Wednesday (6) up 1.21%, at R$ 4.7147 on sale — the highest since March 31 (R$ 4.7628).

In this session, the Central Bank will carry out a traditional foreign exchange swap auction for the purpose of rolling over the maturity date of June 1, 2022.

Investors this morning digested the possibility of dealing with a less favorable environment for equity investments.

The release this Wednesday (6) of the minutes of the meeting held in March by the Fed’s monetary policy committee (Federal Reserve, the US central bank) reinforced the perception that global inflation amplified by the war in Ukraine will lead to a further rise. aggressive interest rates and the reduction of other economic stimuli.

After a day of general lows, the futures markets of stocks in Brazil and the United States showed signs of stabilization before the opening of the Stock Exchanges.

In Europe, the London Stock Exchange had a slight drop of 0.15%. Paris and Frankfurt were up 0.61% and 0.38%, respectively. Asian markets closed lower. Tokyo lost 1.69%. Hong Kong fell 1.23%.

According to the minutes of the US central bank, some of the policy makers discussed making more than a 50 percentage point increase in interest rates over the course of this year if inflation persists.

In March, the Fed raised the country’s benchmark rates for the first time since 2018. The increase applied was 0.25 percentage point, for a rate that had been lowered to close to zero at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The minutes of the meeting showed that a 0.5 point increase was even considered in March.

Initially, however, analysts estimated that all highs this year would be 0.25 percentage point.

Now, in addition to continuing to raise the credit rate, the authority is also expected to start reducing its bond portfolio, which accumulates around US$9 trillion (R$41 trillion).

During the pandemic, one of the Fed’s strategies to mitigate the economic cooling was to inject liquidity into the market through the monthly purchase of about US$ 120 billion (R$ 554 billion) in real estate and Treasury bonds. That program ended this year. Now, to lower its balance sheet, the bank will allow these bonds to mature.

The minutes indicate that the Fed discussed reducing its balance sheet by up to US$95 billion a month (R$446 billion) starting next month, when its next meeting will be held.

The reference price for crude oil appreciated by 1.34%, with a barrel of Brent quoted at US$ 102.42 (R$ 480.97). The gain comes after a 5.22% drop the day before, which was triggered by the announcement of new releases of strategic stocks by countries to try to soften the reduction in supply from Russia, whose exports were banned from the United States.

The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that its member countries had agreed to release 120 million barrels of oil from their reserves, with the United States contributing half of that volume.

The part offered by the US government will come from the general withdrawal of its strategic stocks. President Joe Biden had already announced the release of 180 million barrels from the country’s reserve.

In Brazil, the Ministry of Mines and Energy presented this Wednesday the names of José Mauro Ferreira Coelho to preside over Petrobras and Márcio Andrade Weber to command the state-owned company’s Board of Directors.

Coelho is already a member of the board of a state-owned company and passed through the MME (Ministry of Mines and Energy). Weber is on the oil company’s board of directors.

The names are part of an internal solution by the government, which did not find people from the private sector willing to fill the posts amid pressure from President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) on fuel prices.

In the market, the expectation is that the names will be approved by the Petrobras meeting next Wednesday (13), according to Ilan Arbetman, analyst at Ativa Investimentos.

“With these nominations, the government ends a period with the company’s two top positions vacant. This reduces the dose of doubt and asymmetry that hovered over the company’s shares in recent days and contributed to them performing, sometimes, differently of the international oil movement,” commented Arbetman.

with Reuters