🏦 Rate expectations

INTEREST RATES

Central Bank faces unusually split market ahead of rate decision

Brazil’s Central Bank Monetary Policy Committee will later today announce whether it will hold or raise the country’s benchmark interest rate, which currently stands at 14.75%. For once, analysts are split on the outcome.

A slim majority of banks and economists anticipate no change to the Selic benchmark rate, according to surveys by local media outlets and the Central Bank’s own Focus Report, a weekly poll of top-rated investment firms. That report has shown, for six consecutive weeks, a median projection that the rate will hold steady through the end of 2025.

But the prevailing consensus that once defined Brazilian monetary policy forecasts is fraying. About 40% of firms surveyed by local outlets now expect a hike to 15% this week. Finance newspaper Valor noted this is the sharpest split among its 126 respondents since May 2024, when the committee reached its rate decision by an uncommon 5-4 vote…

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