Though embarrassed by the hooting press, the fund was expecting a turnaround now that traders were returning from the Hamptons. August, presumably, had been a quirk. "People were on vacation, " the partners told one another. Now it will come back. " But the day after Meriwether's letter, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Brazilian debt. This was a bad sign. The global traders who carried the germ of financial crisis from country to country were now, as if by unspoken accord, focusing on Brazil. Currency speculators were putting the squeeze on Sao Paulo, which-following the dubious example of Moscow-was denying that it would ever devalue. The last thing LTCM wanted was another Russia.