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Non-Tech : The Brazil Board -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: THE ANT who wrote (2046)	12/16/2019 11:01:53 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 2504

Brazil’s economy appears to be on a stronger footing than most observers had believed, official figures showed on Tuesday, with growth in the third quarter beating expectations and previous readings going back to last year being revised higher. Brazil GDP surprise shows economy in better shape than thought By Jamie McGeever BRASILIA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Brazil’s economy appears to be on a stronger footing than most observers had believed, official figures showed on Tuesday, with growth in the third quarter beating expectations and previous readings going back to last year being revised higher. The faster growth so far this year and over the course of 2018 shows that Latin America’s largest economy steered clearer of recession than previously thought, and is accelerating into the year end. Economists say this is evidence that the government’s economic reform agenda of getting the public finances in order and reducing the size of the state is paying off, although it also raises questions over how low the central bank can cut interest rates. “The latest figures and revisions are a much-needed boost to the economy, but above all, reflect the effectiveness of the government’s economic program and the central bank’s monetary policy,” said Jason Vieira, chief economist at Infinity Asset Management in Sao Paulo. Jose Francisco Goncalves, chief economist at Banco Fator in Sao Paulo, agreed: “This is positive for the government’s reform agenda, but not so good if you expected interest rates to be heading below 4.5%.” The central bank has slashed its benchmark Selic rate by 150 basis points to a new all-time low of 5.00% this year, boosting business and consumer sentiment, and indicated clearly it will cut another 50 bps to 4.50% later in December. Brazil’s gross domestic product expanded 0.6% in the third quarter over the second quarter, government statistics agency IBGE said on Tuesday, driven by strong growth in agriculture, industry, business investment and domestic demand. That was faster than the 0.4% forecast in a Reuters poll of economists and the highest since the first quarter of last year. The second quarter was revised up to 0.5% quarterly growth from 0.4%, and data show that the economy was flat the first quarter, as opposed to the 0.2% contraction initially estimated. IBGE also revised up last year’s overall economic growth to 1.3% from 1.1%. The 0.6% quarterly growth in the July-September period took the rate of year-on-year growth up to 1.2%, also stronger than the 1.0% expansion forecast by economists. Agribusiness grew by 1.3% in the third quarter and industrial production grew by 0.8%, the best performance in almost two years, IBGE figures showed. Business investment rose 2.0%, another strong performance following 3.0% growth in the previous three months, while the services sector, which accounts for more than 70% of the Brazilian economy, expanded by 0.4%, IBGE said. On the flip side, government spending contracted for the second quarter in a row, shrinking by 0.4%, while net exports continued to be a drag on growth too, with exports falling 2.8% and imports rising 2.9%. (Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Alison Williams and Chizu Nomiyama)

To: THE ANT who wrote (2046)	1/22/2020 3:06:39 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 2504

Brazil Strategists Say Valuations May Be Entering New Normal After a 46% record-breaking rally over the past two years some investors would be forgiven for thinking Brazil’s stock market looks expensive. Still, strategists from Bank of America Corp. to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Banco Santander Brasil SA are saying that Brazil’s stock market will continue to trade at a premium to historical valuations, and argue that additional gains may be just around the corner. By Vinicius Andrade 21 de janeiro de 2020, 19:13 WET Ibovespa will be expensive relative to history, JPMorgan says Brazil enters ‘uncharted territory’ as reforms advance: BofA After a 46% record-breaking rally over the past two years some investors would be forgiven for thinking Brazil’s stock market looks expensive. Still, strategists from Bank of America Corp. to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Banco Santander Brasil SA are saying that Brazil’s stock market will continue to trade at a premium to historical valuations, and argue that additional gains may be just around the corner. At Monday’s close, Brazil’s benchmark Ibovespa index traded at 14 times forecast earnings, the highest multiple in more than three years and above the five-year average of 11.9 times, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “Looking at historical multiples could be misleading,” David Beker, a Latin America equity strategist at BofA, wrote in a report Tuesday. Brazil “is now in uncharted territory,” with structural reforms moving forward and the central bank slashing the benchmark interest rate to a record. Assuming a lower cost of capital, BofA calculated that the Ibovespa’s new fair value multiple could be closer to 15 times forecast earnings. The rally in Brazilian stocks has been driven by early signs of accelerating economic growth and legislative progress for the government’s market-friendly agenda -- including an overhaul of Brazil’s social security system. The optimism has also been reflected in Brazil’s credit default swaps, a hedge against losses on sovereign debt, which are trading at prices last seen in 2010. JPMorgan strategist Emy Shayo says that other countries that moved forward with so-called structural reforms -- such as India and Mexico -- have been expensive for “significant” periods of time. “Valuations are a side note on the Brazil story,” strategists led by Shayo wrote in a Jan. 6 report. An additional source of upside might be earnings growth, Banco Santander Brasil strategists Daniel Gewehr and Ricardo Peretti say. According to their estimates, about 78% of the Brazilian rally seen from mid-September 2018 through Dec. 26, 2019, was caused by higher price-to-earnings ratios, while earnings revisions contributed just 22%. “We see slightly higher EPS revisions from now on, with accelerating GDP growth in 2020 being incorporated in consensus estimates,” Gewehr and Peretti wrote in a report Jan. 6. “The earnings movie is better than the valuation photo.” — With assistance by Ricardo Strulovici Wolfrid

To: THE ANT who wrote (2046)	2/21/2020 7:16:07 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 2504

Ex-Tesla Executive Decamps to Brazil and Bets Big on Batteries By Laura Millan Lombrana 17 de setembro de 2019, 12:00 WEST Brazil has vast potential for storage, Marco Krapels says The nation’s market for big batteries is hardly existent Marco Krapels left Tesla Inc. and started a battery company in a place that’s a hemisphere away from California’s rarefied clean-energy scene: Brazil. Krapels, Tesla’s former vice president for international expansion of solar and storage, now runs Sao Paulo-based MicroPower-Comerc. The company, backed by Siemens AG, is pushing to use big mobile batteries to wean Latin America’s largest economy off oil-fired generators during blackouts. It won’t be easy. Brazil offers almost no government subsidies for renewable energy and imposes stiff import taxes. The nation’s market for big batteries, meanwhile, is hardly existent. Nonetheless, Krapels sees opportunity in a place with an occasionally unstable power grid and a robust market for wind and solar. “This is not for the faint of heart, but I think there’s an advantage on being the first to move into a market,” Krapels said by phone. Much of Brazil’s power sector is already carbon-free, with about two-thirds of electricity coming from hydropower. Developers have also aggressively developed wind farms in recent years, including in the breeze-rich region of Serra Branca. But businesses regularly turn to diesel generators during blackouts that are endemic in some areas. Krapels began exploring the potential for batteries in Brazil when he worked for SolarCity, which Tesla acquired in 2016. He wanted a large market with an unreliable power system and no significant government subsidies, which force companies to depend on political cycles. Brazil checked all those boxes. MicroPower, founded last year, offers to deliver on-site lithium-ion storage systems to big-box stores, hotels and other large commercial and industrial customers to use instead of diesel when lights go dark. The systems, which MicroPower owns and maintains, also allow customers to save money by storing up electricity at night when it’s cheap, then using it during the day when prices spike. The company has installed pilot systems at a Coca-Cola bottling plant and a McDonald’s restaurant. Comerc Energia, a Sao Paulo-based energy trading and management company, took an undisclosed stake in the company about 18 months ago. In July, Siemens’s investment arm took a 20% stake. One of MicroPower’s primary challenges is navigating Brazil’s complex tax and regulatory structure. The company doesn’t manufacture its systems, and Brazil’s import taxes tack on about 65% to its battery costs. To get around that issue, MicroPower is exploring buying battery components abroad and assembling them in Brazil, said Peter Conklin, a former SunEdison Inc. executive who co-founded MicroPower and is its chief operating officer. BloombergNEF expects cumulative global battery storage capacity to soar from 29.4 gigawatt-hours this year to 710.6 gigawatt-hours in 2029. The amount of storage in Brazil, however, is negligible, according to BNEF. While investors have begun to take interest in the market, storage companies have not gained much traction. “Intuitively it sounds quite attractive to combine resiliency with economic advantage within the commercial and industrial segment,” BNEF analyst Logan Goldie-Scot said. “But in practice that’s been quite hard to get off the ground.”