Brazil's Real Opens Weaker As The Dollar Firms Globally; Analysts say that the real's drop could be short lived.
The Brazilian real weakened against the dollar Thursday in early trade as the dollar firmed globally.</br></br>The real was trading at 2.2399 real to the dollar at 8:43 a.m. EDT, compared with 2.2285 at Wednesday's close, according to Tullett Prebon via Factset.</br></br>But the drop could be short lived, after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's Wednesday remarks indicated U.S. monetary policy won't change abruptly.</br></br>"Foreign capital flows (into Brazil) will continue," said Paulo Nepomuceno, a fixed-income strategist at Sao Paulo brokerage firm Coinvalores. "Today's real weakness shouldn't go on for long," he said.</br></br>Mr. Nepomuceno also said there are expectations that Brazilian corporations will make sizable bond issues in the next few days, helping to sustain the currency.