The U.S. dollar closed lower against the Brazilian real on Monday after briefly reaching the R$5 mark again.
Market participants exploited the higher quotes to sell the currency, anticipating the release of economic data and documents later in the week, domestically and internationally.
The spot dollar ended the day at R$ 4.9741, a decrease of 0.49%. For March, the U.S. currency has seen a slight increase of 0.05%.
At its peak for the day at 10:01 AM, the dollar hit R$ 5.0076 (+0.18%) and dropped to its lowest at 2:47 PM at R$ 4.9373 (-0.43%).
Around 5:10 PM, the nearest maturity dollar futures contract on the B3 was down 0.58%, selling at R$ 4.975.
Earlier, the spot dollar surged in Brazil, nearing R$5, prompting selling by exporters and investors holding US currency. This caused the dollar to move into negative territory.
“At first, the dollar approached R$5 amid anticipation of a significant indicator agenda this week,” stated Jefferson Rugik, Correparti Corretora’s director.
“When the dollar touched R$5, there was an unwinding of bought positions, with investors taking profits. Then the dollar began to follow international trends.”
The dollar’s decline against the real throughout the afternoon was in line with international trends, where the U.S. currency experienced losses against other currencies from early on.
Close to 5:10 PM, the dollar index, which measures the performance of the U.S. currency against a basket of six currencies, fell by 0.20% to 104.220.
Economic Data Releases in Brazil
In Brazil, attention remains focused on the release of data for the rest of the week.
On Tuesday, the minutes of the last meeting of the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) and March’s IPCA-15 will be released, along with U.S. consumer confidence numbers.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s central government numbers and the Register of Employed and Unemployed (Caged) data will come out.
However, Thursday’s highlights include the Central Bank’s Inflation Report and the U.S. GDP for the fourth quarter.
On Monday morning, the Central Bank sold all 16,000 traditional currency swap contracts offered for the rollover of June maturities.