the global investor
Brazil’s investors withdraw en masse for fears of Bolsonaro
F
oreign investors in Brazil’s stock and bond markets continue to withdraw money en masse from Latin America’s largest economy, frightened off by hardright president Jair Bolsonaro even as investment returns to many other emerging markets. Cross-border flows from Brazil have dwarfed those of most other emerging economies. Foreign investors took $11.8bn from Brazil’s stock market 88
in the four months from February to May and $18.7bn from its bond market between February and April, the most recent month of available data, according to the Institute of International Finance, an industry association that gathers emerging market data. The record outflows, said Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, “reflect investors’ fears regarding
the evolution of the pandemic but, most importantly, the fear of Bolsonaro as an agent of economic, political, institutional and health crises himself”. Foreign investors have always been wary of Mr Bolsonaro’s promises of fiscal discipline, and money trickled out of the Brazilian stock market last year. But since March, foreign money has flooded out of Brazilian assets, according to the IIF. At the same time, emerging
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