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‘In Bald Guy We Trust’: A Currency Analyst Goes Viral in Brazil

  • Robin Brooks’s winning call on real made him a hero on Twitter
  • No currency in world has rallied more than real this year
Robin Brooks speaks during the Mandiri Investment Forum in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2019. 

Robin Brooks speaks during the Mandiri Investment Forum in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2019. 

Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg
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Robin Brooks speaks in the sober monotones of a Ph.D. economist who’s dedicated much of his career to calibrating fair-value models for foreign-exchange rates.

So it was a bit of a shock to Brooks, and his family, when he suddenly became a social media sensation in Brazil. But Brooks is a rarity in financial circles here: a long-term bull on the Brazilian real. And it is this unflinching optimism, even in the worst moments of Brazil’s pandemic collapse, that has now made him the public face of the breakneck rally that’s turned the real into the world’s top-performing currency this year.