Market roundup: Petrobras rally cools in the face of election uncertainty

🔔 The dashboard: Brazil’s benchmark stock index Ibovespa fell 4.77 percent this week. Meanwhile, the Brazilian real fell 2.56 percent against the U.S. dollar.

• Biggest gains: Yudqs (education): +21.91 percent.
• Biggest drops: BRF (meat producer): -17.34 percent.

Petrobras rally cools ahead of election

The price spike that propelled Petrobras’ shares to their highest level in over a decade following the confirmation of a runoff between President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has evaporated.

State of play. There’s an overall sentiment among investors and analysts that a second term for right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro could be good news given the current administration’s declared pro-market and pro-privatization stance. The fact, however, is that in the last 12 months, these intentions have clearly been counteracted by the president’s imperative of seeking re-election.

How it came to this. Since June, when the government forced Petrobras to change its CEO for the third time during President Bolsonaro’s term, the company has announced 15 price cuts for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and liquefied petroleum gas.

• During this period, the price of a barrel of oil began to fall, allowing the state-controlled company to apply a new pricing process that supposedly makes Petrobras’ adjustments to international prices more agile.
• Now that prices abroad have gone up again, Petrobras has seemingly resisted sticking to its parity price policy.

Yes,...