Brazil’s currency fell the most in the world and stocks tumbled after Moody’s Investors Service cut state oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s credit rating to junk amid a widening corruption probe.
Moody’s on Tuesday cut Petrobras’s rating to Ba2, two levels below investment grade, and said further reductions were possible. Petrobras is the world’s most-indebted publicly traded oil company, with about $52 billion of bonds outstanding. Speculation that Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings might follow with their own downgrades sent the company’s benchmark bonds due in 2021 plunging 1.95 cents to 88.96 cents on the dollar, the biggest decline this month.
