Today’s Focus
A surge in silver prices overnight — up more than three and a half percent by the close — sets a unique backdrop for a region that counts major miners of the white metal among its listed firms. That rippled through London and early Asian trade, giving regional materials stocks a reason to push higher at the open even as US equity futures were little moved.
Brazilian assets face their own litmus test this morning. The July IPCA consumer inflation index is out this morning, the first official price reading since the Copom policy committee cut the Selic, Brazil’s benchmark interest rate, to 14.00 percent last week. Consensus expects monthly inflation to slow sharply from the previous 0.16 percent.
The real closed weaker at 5.11 per dollar, and any surprise above consensus in the inflation number could quickly dent the currency. Alongside the IPCA, traders will also scrutinise the Copom meeting minutes — out simultaneously — for clues on whether the quarter-point cut was an easy choice or a split decision.
Against that cautious Brazil focus, the broader region draws strength from Argentina’s Merval, the Buenos Aires stock index, which gained more than one percent in the prior session, and from Colombia’s COLCAP, which rose almost as much. Mexico’s IPC, the country’s main index, was the laggard, handing back nearly three quarters of a percent as investors weighed industrial production data due today.
