It’s hard to believe it was only about three months ago. Time flies when disaster unfolds all around you. In early June, Brazil’s central bank arranged a press conference where its President Ilan Goldfajn would set everyone straight. The currency was falling, he admitted, but it would be easily handled by closely following the Portuguese version of the global central bank handbook.
Sometimes you just have to admire the unrivaled brazenness of these guys and gals. Or, as I put it at the time, Goldfajn just called everyone stupid. He would have to believe that of us because Brazil has been through this before. Not in some long distant past disgrace, but just a few years ago. In fact, as he spoke, Brazil still hadn’t yet begun its recovery from the last time.
I couldn’t resist what I still think was appropriate snark in response:
We are just short of five years from when the last Banco chief called a press conference in 2013 to declare pretty much the same exact thing. Only then, Banco acted and had initiated a swap program that by early 2015 had extended to more than $115 billion. It ran so smoothly, the Brazilian economy is today celebrated as the model for how all EM crises should be handled.
Just kidding. Of course not. The real crashed and with it the Brazilian economy.
Is that ahead for Brazil, repeating the nightmare? Today’s statistics for Q2 2018 aren’t looking good, not that anyone who isn’t stupid would have expected otherwise.
Brazil’s economy had been decelerating for some time before. The currency, meaning dollar, and economy go hand in hand in that regard. Both BRL, as well as Brazil’s economy each, fell into an obvious “L” pattern. That’s not a very good template to follow in either direction, but it makes the potential re-emerging downslope that much more precarious.
Since the middle of last year when renewed “dollar” troubles arose (Q3), Brazilian GDP has been slowing. In the latest quarter, Q2 2018, real GDP grew by just 1% year-over-year. Not only is that the weakest in over a year, it’s becoming obvious in which direction everything is heading.
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