PETROBRAS LOOMS LARGE European high-yield bond managers are also increasingly wary about exposure to Petrobras, which is at the centre of the country's "carwash" corruption scandal but also got caught up in S&P's sovereign downgrade and was cut two notches from BBB- to BB. The Brazilian oil giant has 6.9bn of euro bonds outstanding, alongside... Continue Reading →

Brazil's increasingly unpopular president, Dilma Rousseff, has had to negotiate parts of her recently announced austerity measures with skeptical lawmakers, putting in doubt fiscal savings needed to balance Brazil's budget, newspaper Estado de S. Paulo said on Thursday. If the government concedes on the three items under discussion, it could reduce proposed spending cuts by... Continue Reading →

Brazil’s real and stocks dropped on speculation that the president’s proposal to rein in the budget deficit will fail in Congress after lawmakers began formally discussing the possibility of impeachment on the floor of the lower house. Thursday’s 1.8 percent decline for the currency was the most in emerging markets and sent a gauge of... Continue Reading →

Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:56am EDT Reuters Brazil's fiscal plan is a positive development, says Moody's RIO DE JANEIRO, SEPT 15 Brazil's recently-announced austerity measures are a "positive development," a senior analyst with Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday in a vote of confidence to President Dilma Rousseff's efforts to plug a budget deficit in... Continue Reading →

Brazil's government announced spending cuts and tax increases totaling 65 billion reais ($16.9 billion) on Monday as it races to close a budget deficit that led to a downgrade of the country's credit rating last week. The biggest item was the revival of the unpopular CPMF tax on financial transactions that will raise 32 billion... Continue Reading →

 Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:14am EDT Fitch: Brazil's Tax Hike on Banks May Trim Loan Originations (The following statement was released by the rating agency) NEW YORK, September 14 (Fitch) Brazil's recently announced increase on the social security tax levied on banks could negatively affect the sector's net earnings, says Fitch Ratings. Fitch expects banks... Continue Reading →

Credit growth in China, Brazil and Turkey doesn’t only risk spurring a hangover in bad debt -- it also signals a banking crisis is on the horizon, according to the Bank for International Settlements. A ratio of credit to gross domestic product, a measure of how much private-sector credit has deviated from its long-term trend,... Continue Reading →