Heranca maldita dos companheiros: juros mais altos do mundo ate o final de 2015...

Déficit de transações correntes em alta, inflação em alta, e investimentos estrangeiros em baixa.
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Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brazil
Itau economic forescasting, 18/07/2014

The Copom will publish on Thursday the minutes of its last meeting (occurred last Wednesday). In the post-meeting statement, the Copom affirmed that it decided, “at the moment”, to maintain the SELIC rate unchanged at 11.0%. In the context of weak economic activity (particularly the decline in business and consumer confidence), the expression “at the moment” may be interpreted by some market participants as signaling that interest rates could be cut in the coming months. However, we do not see much room for lower rates, given that inflation is above the upper bound of the target range, there are still increases in monitored prices in the pipeline for 2014 and 2015, and the unemployment rate still remains at historical lows. The minutes are expected to provide more details to this discussion.

We maintain our call that the SELIC rate will remain at 11% until the end of 2015.

July’s IPCA-15 consumer inflation preview will hit the wires on Tuesday. We forecast a 0.23% monthly gain, down from 0.47% in June on slower transport and food inflation. If our estimate is on the mark, twelve-month inflation will rise to 6.58% (6.41% in the previous month), with a still-wide gap between market-set and regulated inflation (7.2% and 4.6%, respectively).

June’s unemployment rate is scheduled for release on Thursday, but there is still uncertainty as to whether the full-data will be released. We still don’t know May’s unemployment rate because of strikes among IBGE employees. We forecast the unemployment rate at 5.1% in both May and June, and the seasonally-adjusted reading at 4.8% in both months (4.7% in April). Job creation has been slow, but there are also less people looking for jobs, maintaining the unemployment rate at low levels.

The FGV confidence indexes for July (preview of industrial business confidence on Wednesday and the consumer confidence on Friday) are also noteworthy.

June’s federal tax collection is expected to come through on Wednesday. We forecast BRL 90 billion, which represents a year-over-year decline of 1.4% in real terms (-6.0% in May). If correct, annual growth in the last three months will hit -2.1%, from -0.8% in May. The weakness of tax collection stems from slow economic activity and the tax breaks implemented over recent years. The trend indicates that efforts to increase non-tax revenue will continue, and reinforces our view that the recurring primary fiscal surplus will remain below 1% of GDP this year.

June’s balance of payments will come though on Friday. We look for a current account deficit of USD 3.9 billion, down from USD 6.6 billion in May, but in line with the level recorded in June 2013 (also USD 3.9 billion). The improvement from the previous month should stem mostly from a stronger trade balance, but also from lower deficit in the service and income accounts. If we’re correct, the twelve-month current account deficit will remain stable at 3.6% of GDP. Foreign direct investment is expected to be slightly weaker than in previous months, given the inflow of only USD 2.3 billion until June 18th. We estimate USD 3.6 billion, with the twelve month reading declining from 2.9% to 2.8% of GDP.