Brazil: Stock market keeps breaking records under Bolsonaro

[SAO PAULO] Brazil's stock market hit a new record on Thursday, breaking through the 95,000-point level in a streak of gains racked up since President Jair Bolsonaro took office at the beginning of the year.

The Sao Paulo exchange closed 1.01 per cent up at 95,351 points, confirming investors' endorsement of Mr Bolsonaro's pro-business stewardship and promise to reform Latin America's biggest economy. So far this year the Bovespa index has climbed 7.83 per cent.

The buoyancy is largely thanks to Mr Bolsonaro's economy minister, Paulo Guedes, a US-trained free-market advocate who is promising privatisations and an overhaul of the country's costly pension system.

The world's political and financial elite will have an opportunity next week to hear Bolsonaro and Guedes expound on their economic plans at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Thursday's trading in Sao Paulo saw commodities favored, with mining giant Vale gaining 3.11 per cent on the back of higher steel prices, and state-run oil company Petrobras adding 1.77 per cent.

Losers were led by Embraer, the Brazilian planemaker, which lost 4.05 per cent the day after it lowered 2018 financial projections and said it was unlikely to make a profit this year, in part because of costs associated with it folding its commercial planes business into a joint venture with US group Boeing.

The Brazilian currency, the real, lost ground against the US dollar, declining 0.35 per cent to 3.74 to the greenback.

AFP