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Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto downplayed concerns about the sharp acceleration in March inflation, seeking to contain the market’s reaction to the latest reading of the IPCA, Brazil’s official inflation index, unveiled Friday. Inflation was up 1.62% in the month, above the median of 41 projections compiled by Valor Data, of 1.32%.
The financial market followed Monday morning a live-streamed event with Mr. Campos Neto, held by Arko Advice and the Traders Club (TC), in search of signs about a possible extension of the monetary tightening cycle after the news on inflation.
Mr. Campos Neto said that the reading represents a “small” surprise, before explaining that the Central Bank needs to better analyze the data before unveiling its findings.
The central banker had been saying he saw a final interest rate hike in May, to 12.75% per year from the current 11.75%, as the more likely outcome. He did not repeat this message on Monday. But this seemingly does not mean he will tighten further, as he had already failed to repeat the signal in a statement at another event last Thursday, before the latest figure for the IPCA was released.
Mr. Campos Neto tried to soften the bad news in several moments. He said the monetary authority had already been calling attention to the fact that when oil company Petrobras raises fuel prices, the increases hit the pumps more quickly, although in the end the pass-through occurred at an even faster speed. According to him, this faster pass-through in a month means that, in the subsequent period, there will be compensation.
Mr. Campos Neto also said that it wasn’t only in Brazil that there were surprises in the most recent inflation reading, as several other countries faced the same situation. He highlighted the role that the recent appreciation of the real against the dollar may have in avoiding a strong impact of the rise in commodity prices in inflation.
According to him, the stronger real is not completely priced by the financial market, since many analysts are still working with a foreign exchange rate between R$5.25 and R$5.35 to the dollar. “When I look at the estimates I get from the inflation market, some people have already fully considered the [new] exchange rate, while others haven’t yet,” he said.
In other words, Mr. Campos Neto highlighted the exchange rate as a positive factor that could affect the market’s inflation expectations, at a moment when economic analysts are raising their projections in response to faster inflation.
And Mr. Campos Neto also said he was comfortable with the appreciation of the real, saying that it doesn’t demand interventions from the Central Bank. He signaled that he might start selling dollars on the market if there are impacts from the withdrawal of stimulus in the United States.
Mr. Campos Neto was asked if there was any special concern with services inflation. He answered that these prices had been showing the expected behavior during the reopening of the economy. But industrial goods prices failed to drop as expected. “[Service] inflation somewhat reacted in the way we expected,” Mr. Campos Neto said.
Some negative things mentioned by Mr. Campos Neto deserve attention. For example, he cited rising wages for the first time and spoke of high core inflation and the prices of clothing and food away from home, which showed a “surprising increase.”
But overall, he was quite careful to avoid definitive conclusions, claiming more than once that one must carefully study the data. He also recalled that the interest rate hikes made since last year have not yet had time to be seen in the economy.
In other words, Mr. Campos Neto’s entire speech was designed to acknowledge that the IPCA was higher than expected, but that it is undecided whether an additional monetary policy response will be necessary.
Source: Valor International