On Tuesday, the U.S. dollar saw a modest uptick against the Brazilian real.
This change came after the Central Bank of Brazil’s Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) released its minutes and inflation data was updated.
The dollar’s closing rate was 4.9839 reais, a 0.20% increase. For March, the dollar’s overall gain is 0.25%.
At the B3 exchange, the closest future dollar contract rose 0.20% to 4.984 reais by 5:04 PM.
Two significant updates marked Tuesday morning in Brazil. First, the Copom minutes hinted at a possible slowdown in Selic rate cuts, now at 10.75% per year.
They predict a 50-basis-point cut in May and a 25-basis-point cut in June.
Also, IPCA-15 inflation slowed from 0.78% in February to 0.36% in March, above the expected 0.32%.
These updates influenced future interest rates and initially strengthened the real against the dollar. It suggests a higher Selic rate could draw more investment to Brazil.
Right after these announcements, the dollar dipped to 4.9654 reais, down 0.17%.
This downward trend was short-lived. The dollar started climbing in the first hour of trade.
“The Copom minutes were as expected,” Matheus Massote from One Investments said. However, they barely affected Brazil’s exchange rate.
By 12:42 PM, the dollar hit a high of 4.9947 reais, up 0.41%. This happened as the dollar showed mixed results globally.
By late afternoon, at 5:09 PM, the dollar index was up 0.11%, reaching 104.330.
That morning, the Central Bank sold all 16,000 offered swap contracts, rolling over to June.