A Hapless Brazil Incurs Massive Losses On FX Swaps Amid Currency Carnage
As we’ve documented extensively of late, a host of idiosyncratic political factors have served to exacerbate what was already a very, very bad situation for emerging markets.
This dynamic is most readily apparent in Brazil and Turkey, and although Ankara probably has a leg up in the race for “most at risk from domestic turmoil”, Brazil isn’t far behind as President Dilma Rousseff battles abysmal approval ratings and a recalcitrant Congress in an effort to shore up the country’s finances by convincing lawmakers to sign off on much needed austerity measures.
Meanwhile, a confluence of exogenous shocks that include slumping commodity prices, depressed Chinese demand, the PBoC yuan devaluation, and the threat of an imminent Fed hike have conspired with country-specific political turmoil to send the BRL plunging and that, in turn, has put Copom in what former Treasury secretary Carlos Kawall calls “crisis mode.”
Of course crises are often costly to combat, especially when you’re an emerging market in the current environment and when it comes to Brazil, the use of alternative measures (like effectively selling dollars in the futures market) to avoid FX reserve liquidation is now weighing heavily on the fiscal outlook. As Goldman noted earlier this week on the heels of the latest monthly budget data, “the overall fiscal deficit is tracking at a disquieting 9.2% of GDP, driven in part by the surging net interest bill, which was exacerbated by the large losses on the central bank stock of Dollar-swaps.” Here’s what Capital Economics had to say after an emergency swaps auction was called by Copom in a desperate attempt to shore up the BRL last week:
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