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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerry A. Laska who wrote (7401)	9/2/1998 10:24:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

CORRECTED - Cardoso slips in polls, still seen winning 1st round Reuters, Wednesday, September 02, 1998 at 21:14 In SAO PAULO story headlined "Cardoso slips in polls, still seen winning 1st round" please read in second graf...said that 44 percent of those surveyed would cast ballots for Cardoso, according to local television. Though down from 46 percent...instead of...said that 46 percent of those surveyed would cast ballots for Cardoso, according to local television. Though down from 44 percent (makes clear that the support figure has dropped to 44 percent from 46 percent) A corrected version follows SAO PAULO, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's popularity slipped at the end of August, though he still enjoyed a big lead ahead of October 4 elections, a nationwide poll said on Wednesday. The Ibope polling agency said that 44 percent of those surveyed would cast ballots for Cardoso, according to local television. Though down from 46 percent in its mid-August poll, Cardoso is still seen garnering enough support to win in a first round of voting, the poll showed. Support for the president's main opponent, leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, jumped 3 percentage points to 25 percent of the vote. Two minor candidates rallied the support of a combined 10 percent of those surveyed. The poll surveyed 2,000 people across Brazil between August 27 and 31. TV Globo, which released the survey on its nightly news program, did not give a margin of error. The latest Ibope figures show Cardoso losing some of his popularity amid the global financial turmoil that has sent Brazilian markets into a tailspin. But he was still comfortably wide of the 38 percent he would need to win reelection in a first round of voting, Ibobe said. Cardoso, who became president in 1995 and hopes to be Brazil's first-ever reelected president, saw his popularity drop as the economy has ground to a halt at the beginning of the year and unemployment soared to a 14-year high. He staged a comeback after officially announcing his candidacy and launching an ad campaign that highlights his widely-hailed fight against inflation. The latest poll showed many Brazilians had yet to make up their minds. Eleven percent of those polled were undecided while 9 percent would cast blank or voided ballots, it said. Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service

To: Jerry A. Laska who wrote (7401)	9/2/1998 10:34:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

Mexico's Fin Min:Colombia Devaluation Causing "Jitters" Dow Jones Newswires NEW YORK -- The Colombian devaluation "is introducing a bit of the jitters in Latin American markets," Mexican Finance Minister Jose Angel Gurria told The Wall Street Journal in an article to be published in its Thursday edition. Gurria, expected to attend Thursday's special talks between Latin American economic ministers and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, told the newspaper that his country's healthy economy could eventually be undermined by "lack of discrimination" by global markets. The Mexican government is betting that interest rates boosted in defense of the faltering peso can be brought down fast enough to avoid damaging what is still a fairly robust economy. Gurria said Wednesday that the recent upsurge in Mexico's secondary market rates, from 18% to nearly 40% earlier this week, was a temporary phenomenon. But he acknowledged that it is "difficult to know" how long it would take before rates could be lowered. What is clear, he added, was that if rates remain high for a sustained period, it would have a "permanent impact."

To: Jerry A. Laska who wrote (7401)	9/2/1998 10:35:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 22640

Brazil's Fin Min: Brazil Firmly Against Devaluations Dow Jones Newswires NEW YORK -- Brazil's Finance Minister Pedro Malan told The Wall Street Journal that his country will hold the line against devaluation, and also rejected currency controls like those recently imposed by Malaysia, in an article to be published in the newspaper's Thursday edition. Malan added that the U.S. could best aid the region by promptly cutting interest rates. "I think the time has come for the (U.S. Federal Reserve) to give serious consideration to a lowering of U.S. interest rates," Malan said. "I think it would be an important contributor to easing of the current tension in the international market." Malan, expected to attend Thursday's special talks between Latin American economic ministers and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, told the newspaper that Brazil will maintain the stability of its currency and that it will introduce a plan to control the country's gaping budget deficit after October's presidential elections. He said Brazil's move four months ago to widen the band at which the real trades has eliminated the need for a devaluation. Malan also emphatically rejected currency controls. "We had a long experience decades ago with exchange controls and they generate more problems than they solve," he said. He did defend the tax that Brazil applies on some short-term speculative investments to modulate the ebb and flow of foreign capital. The Central Bank last eased the tax rate to rebuild shrinking Brazilian reserves.