The real advanced to a level stronger than 2 per dollar for the first time in a week after the central bank auctioned currency swaps for a fourth consecutive day to support the exchange rate.
Yields on Brazilian interest-rate futures fell after the biggest one-day increase in almost three years as a columnist for a Sao Paulo-based daily said inflation is more likely to slow to the target of policy makers. The central bank sold 14,000 out of the 40,000 currency swap contracts it offered today, according to a statement.
“The central bank is offering more swaps than the market is absorbing,” said Darwin Dib, chief economist at CM Capital Markets Asset Management, in a phone interview from Sao Paulo. “If investors aren’t buying all the swaps offered in the auction, it’s because they aren’t very convinced that this level of the real is sustainable.”