Brazil’s run is far from over

Brazilian stocks are on a roll. The benchmark Bovespa index gained 40% in 2016 and has notched up another 30% this year.

"You'd hardly think this was a country gripped by crisis," says Jonathan Wheatley in the Financial Times. Brazilian stocks are on a roll. The benchmark Bovespa index gained 40% in 2016 and has notched up another 30% this year. This is despite President Michel Temer becoming the second Brazilian leader in two years to become embroiled in a corruption scandal. His predecessor Dilma Rousseff was impeached. Prosecutors have accused Temer of running a "criminal organisation"

So what's gone right? For one thing, the macroeconomic backdrop has improved after the worst recession in a century. Growth of 2.4% has been pencilled in for next year. The uptick in commodities prices has bolstered exports, while falling inflation at home has provided scope for interest-rate cuts. Last month the central bank cut rates by a whole percentage point. Earnings are finally beginning to surprise on the upside, as the FT's Joe Leahy points out.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.