FX.co ★ Brazilian Stocks Ease from Record

Brazil's Ibovespa index slipped slightly below the 165,000 mark on Thursday, dipping just beneath the record high achieved in the previous session. This movement was mainly due to losses in resource-linked stocks, while gains were seen across other sectors. Petrobras shares dropped by around 2%, reflecting the sharp decline in crude oil prices after US President Trump softened his earlier rhetoric about directly confronting the Iranian regime amid ongoing protests, thereby reducing concerns about potential disruptions to oil supply from that region. Major steel producers also experienced declines following disappointing Chinese monetary data, with companies such as CSN, CSN Mineração, and Usiminas falling by over 3%. Conversely, banking stocks saw gains and utility shares were generally on the rise. Furthermore, new figures revealed a strong increase in Brazilian retail sales for November. However, the optimism from this report was somewhat tempered by the Central Bank of Brazil's (BCB) ongoing restrictive monetary policy. Renner and Assai both saw declines of 3%.