Brazil Real Loses on FX Tax, Dollar’s Sudden Appreciation

The Brazilian currency demonstrated a biggest drop against the US dollar this year today, as the government introduced a new tax on FX derivatives investments, and the dollar jumped up against the other major currencies.

During the day the Brazil real demonstrated a loss of about 2 percent (before returning to current levels), which is the biggest single-day decrease for this currency in more than 12 months. The Brazil authorities will now charge 1 percent tax on some derivatives operations on the foreign exchange market, which supposedly will curb the demand for the local currency, cooling down its extraordinary fast appreciation rally.

Another factor that forced the real down against the US currency was the gain of the latter against the other major currencies today. It followed some vague news about John Boehner‘s debt-relief plan gaining a positive review among Republicans in US Congress. Nonetheless, the situation remains far from its solution point with the US debt ceiling.

USD/BRL rose from 1.5395 to 1.5580 as of 18:20 GMT; it was at its daily maximum at 1.5710 earlier today.

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