China suspends all new nuclear plants, orders safety review; U.S. plans unchanged
16 de março de 2011Mantega: inflação está perdendo força e deve fechar março em torno de 0,45%
18 de março de 2011The Bovespa stock index fell for the second day, joining a global selloff, on signs that Japan’s nuclear crisis is worsening and the U.S. housing recovery is stalled.
Vale SA (VALE3) and Gerdau SA (GGBR4), two of Brazil’s biggest metals exporters, sank on concern growth in Japan and in the U.S. will falter, cooling demand for materials. Hypermarcas SA (HYPE3), Brazil’s fourth-largest consumer-goods company by market value, climbed after Barclays Plc rated the stock “overweight.”
The Bovespa fell 1.5 percent to 66,002.57 at the close of Sao Paulo trading at 4:15 p.m. New York time. It dropped as much as 2 percent earlier. Fifty-two stocks fell on the index, while 13 gained. The real weakened 0.6 percent to 1.6760 per U.S. dollar.
“Foreign investors are still very cautious about putting their money in Brazil,” said Joao Pedro Brugger, who helps oversee 60 million reais ($35.8 million) at Leme Investimentos in Florianopolis, Brazil. “There’s been unrest in the Middle East, an earthquake in Japan and housing data in the U.S, all sources of concern. The actual state of the Brazilian economy hasn’t been as important as this news.”
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a reactor containment vessel may have been breached at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant, deepening Japan’s nuclear crisis and increasing the risks of radioactive leaks.
The company suspected damage following an explosion in the reactor building yesterday. About 70 percent of the fuel rods at the plant’s No. 1 reactor and a third of the No. 2 reactor’s fuel may have been damaged, and temperatures at spent-fuel-rod- cooling pools were rising, Tepco said.
U.S. Housing
Housing starts in the U.S. declined in February to the slowest pace since April 2009 and building permits dropped to a record low, signs the housing market recovery is limping along as the rest of the economy improves.
New home construction fell 22.5 percent to a 479,000 annual rate, U.S. Commerce Department figures showed. The decrease from January was the steepest since March 1984. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 566,000 rate. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, fell 8.2 percent to a 517,000 pace.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2 percent. European stocks tumbled for the sixth day, with the Stoxx 600 index declining 1.6 percent.
Vale fell 2.5 percent to 44.70 reais, the lowest price since September. Gerdau dropped 3.2 percent to 21.42 reais. Hypermarcas gained 0.9 percent to 18.56 reais.
Autometal SA, the Brazilian unit of Spanish auto-parts maker Cie Automotive SA, rose 0.8 percent to 15.96 reais after it was rated “outperform” in new coverage at Credit Suisse Group AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The Bovespa is down 4.8 percent this year after homebuilders and banks retreated on concern rising inflation will spur additional measures to restrict credit growth, outweighing gains in oil and raw-material producers.
The index trades at 10.5 times analysts’ earnings estimates, according to weekly data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares to a ratio of 13.8 for the Shanghai Composite Index, 7.3 for Russia’s Micex, and 17.3 for India’s Sensex.
