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Summary Share price of the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF declined by 1.53% in November. The development was driven mainly by the political factors. The economic situation of Brazil is worsening, the political crisis is deepening and the financial markets would welcome the fall of president Rousseff. The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (NYSEARCA: EWZ ) lost 1.53% of its value in November. Although it was up by more than 11% at one point, it lost all of its gains during the last days of the month, as the political crisis deepened and investors started to fear that the government will be unable to enforce the needed economic reforms and budget cuts. The economy is still in a bad shape, the latest data show that it declined by 4.5% y-o-y in Q3, which is worse than expected. The unemployment rate is at 7.9% and growing and inflation is in the double digit area. Shares of the beverages producer Ambev (NYSE: ABEV ) are still the biggest holding in EWZ’s portfolio, with weight of 10.61%. Ambev is closely followed by preferred shares of Itau Unibanco (NYSE: ITUB ) (10.24%). Besides Ambev and Itau Unibanco, only preferred shares of another bank, Banco Bradesco (NYSE: BBD ), have weight over 5%. The 10 biggest holdings represent 61.47% of the portfolio, which is slightly less, compared to 62.22% in October. Generally, no significant changes in the structure of EWZ could be observed in November. Only common shares of Vale (NYSE: VALE )are not among the TOP 15 holdings anymore, as their value declined sharply after the disastrous dam collapse . Source: own processing, using data of iShares.com Out of the 15 biggest EWZ holdings, the biggest gains were recorded by Fibria Celulose (NYSE: FBR ) in November. The credit rating of the pulp and wood producer has improved, it has completed the financial package for its Horizonte 2 project and it declared a dividend that will bring to its shareholders dividend yield over 7%. Shares of the company grew by 8.72% in November. Shares of the Brazilian airplane producer Embraer (NYSE: EBR ) jumped by 7.5%. For Embraer, November was the third consecutive month of very big gains. On the other hand, November was very negative for Vale. After the dam collapse, shares of the miner declined strongly. Preferred shares of Vale lost almost 25% of their value. (click to enlarge) Source: own processing, using data of Bloomberg The traditionally high correlation between EWZ and Petrobras (NYSE: PBR ) share price was disturbed during the first two weeks of November, although it increased back to its normal levels in the end of the month, after the corruption scandal became one of the main topics of discussion again. Also, the correlation between EWZ and oil prices (represented by the United States Oil ETF (NYSEARCA: USO )) and between EWZ and S&P 500 was relatively low or even negative during the better part of the month. One could say that the Brazilian share market lived its own live and the share price development was driven by the political situation in the country and by the efforts to enforce the austerity measures. (click to enlarge) Source: own processing, using data of Yahoo Finance November was a relatively calm month for EWZ. Although the EWZ share price was up by 11% only a couple of days before the end of the month, but eventually ended the month with a 1.5% loss, the overall volatility measured by the 10-day moving coefficient of variation was lower compared to most of the 2015. It moved in the 1%-3% range for the better part of November, however it broke out of this range in the last days of the month. Given the early December developments, December will be probably more volatile compared to November. (click to enlarge) Source: own processing, using data of Yahoo Finance Some of the more interesting news: Fibria announced that the estimated capex for the Horizonte 2 Project has been revised from $2.5 billion to $2.2 billion. The expenditures will be funded by a combination of its own cash, Agribusiness Receivables Certificates and credit facilities, the estimated average borrowing cost is only 2% p.a. The company also announced that Moody’s has improved its credit rating from Ba1/Positive to Baa3/Stable. Fibria will pay a dividend of approximately $0.96 per shares, which means a dividend yield of over 7.2%. On November 5, a disaster occurred in southern Brazil. A tailings dam owned by iron miner Samarco collapsed and more than 60 million cubic meters of toxic mud destroyed the town of Bento Rodrigues and contaminated the Rio Doce river. Samarco is a 50:50 joint venture of Vale and BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP ) and the disaster had a significant impact on share prices of both companies. According to the latest news, Brazil sued Samarco for $5.3 billion over the spill. Cemig (NYSE: CIG ) won generation concessions for 18 hydro plants with total installed generation capacity of 699.57 MW. The new concessions should partially offset the probable loss of the Jaguara and Sao Simao concessions with total installed capacity of 2,134 MW. Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE: SID ) together with an Asian consortium consisting of ITOCHU Corporation ( OTCPK:ITOCY ), JFE Steel Corporation, POSCO (NYSE: PKX ), Kobe Steel ( OTCPK:KBSTY ), Nisshin Steel ( OTC:NSSSY ) and China Steel Corp. ( OTC:CISEY ) combined some of their assets into a new company Congonhas Mineiros. The new company will consist of an iron ore mine, railroad and port and it will be 87.52% owned by CSN and 12.48% owned by the Asian consortium. A prominent member of the ruling Workers’ Party, senator Delcidio do Amaral, was arrested due to his participation in the Petrobras related corruption. Amaral is a close collaborator of president Rousseff. His arrest further supported the voices calling for Rousseff’s impeachment. Conclusion As the early days of December showed, the Brazilian share market is still strongly affected by the Petrobras corruption scandal and the related political crisis. On December 2, the impeachment proceedings against president Rousseff opened in the lower house of Congress. As a result, the EWZ share price jumped by almost 6% in two days. The financial markets welcomed the vision of a government change and if further developments indicate that Brazil will be able to get rid of Rousseff, EWZ will grow further. Scalper1 News
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