Economics
Brazil’s Real Posts Biggest Quarterly Drop Since December 2008
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Brazil’s real fell, adding to the biggest quarterly slide since 2008, as mounting concern that the global economic recovery is in peril and prospects for lower domestic interest rates damped the allure of the nation’s fixed-income assets.
The real weakened 2.1 percent to 1.8794 per dollar at 5 p.m. New York time, from 1.8403 yesterday. The currency lost 17 percent since the end of June, the second biggest decline among 25 emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg after the Polish zloty. Yields on Brazilian interest-rate futures contracts maturing in January 2013 declined 14 basis points, or 0.14 percentage point, to 10.33 percent today. That brings the fall this quarter to 236 basis points.