Dollar today: currency rises above R$5.20 – 04/16/2024 – Market

The dollar opened higher this Tuesday (16), while investors reflect the result of China’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which came in higher than expected, and await a speech by Fed president Jerome Powell, scheduled for the beginning of the afternoon.

At 9:10 am, the American currency was quoted at 5.223%, an increase of 0.76%.

In the domestic scenario, discussions about the fiscal framework remain on the radar, after the government reduced the primary result target in 2025 to zero.

The previous target, of a surplus of 0.5%, was viewed with skepticism by the market. The change in objective, however, reduced investor confidence in the new fiscal rule, as pointed out by Helena Veronese, chief economist at B.Side Investimentos.

“This shows that the design of the government’s central fiscal project was made with targets that it itself already knows it will not achieve. It takes away some credibility, because they need to change the target so as not to suffer the sanctions that the design of the project itself of the fiscal framework would be imposing”, says the economist.

On Monday (15), the dollar registered an increase of 1.19% and ended the day at R$5.182 this Monday (15), its highest value since March 2023.

Concerns about the heating of the American economy remain the main catalyst, but the currency accelerated gains and reached R$5.214 at the session’s high after the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, confirmed the change in the 2025 fiscal target.

The acceleration, however, also coincided with a sharp worsening in the external mood, with the main Wall Street indices turning negative.

On the Brazilian stock exchange, the Ibovespa started the day oscillating, but began a slight drop in the early afternoon and accelerated losses after Haddad’s interview, pressured by the rise in local future interest rates.

At the end of the day, the main stock market index fell 0.48% and ended the day at 125,333 points, its lowest level of the year.

With Reuters