Brazil stocks, currency ease despite bond mandate
Brazil's currency and stocks eased in early trade on Wednesday, even as the central bank said it asked Citigroup and J.P. Morgan to float a sovereign bond on the international market.
Shortly after opening, the benchmark Bovespa index of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange was 0.77 percent lower at 24,018 points, while the local currency, the real, was 0.21 weaker at 2.836 reais per U.S. dollar.
Local asset prices had been buoyed since Friday on expectations that Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles and Treasury Secretary Joaquim Levy would award a bond mandate while visiting the United States earlier this week.
Sovereign issues often lift Brazilian asset prices as investors prepare for heavier inflows into the largest country in Latin America.
But high oil prices left markets with a softer tone on Tuesday and cut into bond talk gains. The pattern continued on Wednesday.
(From Reuters, October 06, 2004)
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