Brazil's President Joins #Fintwit to Cheer Soaring Stock Market

(Bloomberg) -- Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is taking a page from U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter habits: commenting on financial markets.

The country’s equity benchmark Ibovespa index has hit fresh records amid expectations that Bolsonaro and his economic team will tackle Brazil’s fiscal woes and move to shore up Latin America’s largest economy. The real is leading gains in emerging markets this year, and bond risk measured by five-year credit-default swaps is at the lowest level since May.

“The stock exchange hit another record high. The global scenario has added to the optimism with Brazil and the new government,” Bolsonaro wrote on his Twitter account on Jan. 9. “With fiscal health and economic freedom, let’s restore confidence in our country!”

Bolsonaro is a prolific Twitter user, with almost 3 million followers, and recently has started posting in English as well as Portuguese. It was the second straight day he took to the platform to comment on market moves.

Still, Brazil’s president has a ways to go to catch up with his U.S. counterpart. Since his election, Trump has tweeted about the stock market more than 35 times, though it’s been a lot less frequent since equities took a dive at the end of 2018.

The Ibovespa is up 6.1 percent in January, trading at around 93,000. The most optimistic strategists say it could reach 120,000 by year-end.

--With assistance from Sarah Ponczek.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vinícius Andrade in São Paulo at vandrade3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Courtney Dentch at cdentch1@bloomberg.net, Julia Leite, Brendan Walsh

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