Brazil Real Weakens to 2 Per Dollar for First Time Since 2009
Brazil’s real tumbled to 2 per dollar for the first time in almost three years as Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the exchange rate doesn’t worry the government, encouraging bets the currency may fall further.
The currency extended the biggest loss against the dollar this year among the 16 most-traded counterparts tracked by Bloomberg after economists reduced their forecast for the target lending rate as Greece’s debt turmoil and China’s slowdown weighed on the prospects for global growth.
“The government is loving it,” Alfredo Barbutti, an economist at Liquidez DTVM Ltda., said by phone from Sao Paulo. “The government wanted this. It’s not a movement that escaped its control.”
The real slid 1.5 percent to 1.9962 per U.S. dollar in Sao Paulo after touching 2.0062, the weakest level since July 2009, when the world was trying to recover from the financial crisis. The currency has fallen 6.5 percent this year.