Brazil's currency, stocks soar after Bolsonaro scores first-round election upset

Brazilian assets rallied on Monday after right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro outperformed opinion polls to finish first in the first round of Sunday's presidential election, with the Bovespa benchmark stock index gaining more than 8% and the country's currency strengthening against the US dollar. The eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro won 47% of the votes cast and will face leftist incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula ‌da Silva, who secured about 45% of the vote, in a runoff on October 25. Polls had forecast Lula would lead the first round of voting by around three percentage points.

Investors cheered on Monday as Bolsonaro's strong showing was matched by gains for his allies in Congress. Analysts say a friendlier legislature would make it easier for him, if elected, to push through a pro-market agenda of tighter public spending, privatizations and tax cuts. "Brazil wants change," Bolsonaro said on Sunday evening, heralding the "end of the era of (Lula's) Workers' Party."

Shares in retailer Magazine Luiza, stock exchange operator B3, lender BTG Pactual, ‌car rental firm Localiza, homebuilder Cyrela and conglomerate Cosan jumped more than 20% each, putting them among the top gainers on the Bovespa. The benchmark index was on track for its best daily performance since March 2020, when markets faced extreme volatility at the start of the COVID-19 ‌pandemic.

US-traded shares of Brazilian companies also soared, with brokerage XP up 33%, digital lender Nu Holdings up 13%, and fintech firms StoneCo and PagBank each up more than 20%. The cost of buying insurance on Brazilian government debt through credit default swaps fell 20 basis points as traders bet on an improvement in the country's finances.

J.P. Morgan upgraded Brazil's equities to "overweight" on Monday, saying a more favorable political backdrop after recent election developments had improved the outlook for the region's largest market and could drive a period of outperformance. Brazil's real currency strengthened more than 4% against the US dollar, moving below 5.00 per greenback, from around 5.22 previously, in line with analyst forecasts and the currency's performance four years ago when then-President Jair Bolsonaro ⁠did better than ​expected in the first-round vote against Lula.

The elder Bolsonaro went on to lose ⁠to Lula in the second round of that election and was subsequently convicted of trying to carry out a coup to overturn the result. The former president was sentenced to about 27 years in prison and is currently under house arrest. Brazil's international debt also rallied on Monday, while broader fixed-income markets were jittery. The 2056 bond was up 1.4 ⁠cents on the dollar to bid at 93.5 cents, Tradeweb data showed.

'THE MARKET WANTS CHANGE' Bolsonaro has pitched himself as a "more centered" version of his father to investors concerned about Brazil's burgeoning fiscal pressures.

"It remains to be seen whether the senator would ultimately prove more fiscally responsible than Lula would be in a fourth non-consecutive presidential ​term. However, markets are likely to give him the benefit of the doubt," said Thierry Larose, portfolio manager at Vontobel. If he is elected, Bolsonaro would enjoy some room to maneuver with Congress after his Liberal Party emerged as the biggest winner in congressional races ⁠on Sunday.

Bolsonaro's party increased its representation in the 81-seat Senate from 15 to 28 seats, the strongest result for a party since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985. It also is projected to secure 121 seats in the 513-seat lower house, up from its current 98 seats. "The likelihood of advancing reforms is much greater," said Pedro Paulo Silveira, an analyst at ⁠Terra ​Investimentos. He noted that during the previous Bolsonaro government, reforms often depended on costly political bargaining or stalled altogether.

Analysts also expect the real to continue strengthening into 2027. Societe Generale forecast that it would move to 5.10 by the end of 2026, with scope to move below 5.00 in the first half of 2027. Morgan Stanley forecast the real could strengthen past 4.90 and toward 4.50 in the first quarter of next year. "The market wants change, it wants reform, it doesn't want a high public deficit; with the current government, all of this will continue," said Pedro ⁠Galdi, investment analyst at the AGF Investments platform.

Bolsonaro's strong showing is likely to boost market confidence in the near term, said Bryan Harris, a managing partner at Sabio. "The market will be looking for clear signals from Bolsonaro that he is serious about tackling the country's problems," Harris ⁠said.

Heading into Sunday's vote, most private polls, which largely underestimated the younger Bolsonaro's ⁠strength, had shown the 45-year-old senator and Lula, who will turn 81 later this month, about even in a runoff vote. Reuters exclusively reported on Monday that Lula is considering tapping Vice President Geraldo Alckmin to be his next finance minister if re-elected, in a bid to bolster the government's fiscal credibility and win over centrist voters in the wake of Bolsonaro's first-round success.