On Friday raw-material producers including steelmaker Gerdau SA followed metals lower amid concern economic growth in China is slowing. This sent Sao Paulo stock exchange index down for the first time in four sessions.
The Ibovespa fell 1.5 percent to 49,196.04 at 10:27 a.m. in Sao Paulo, reducing this week’s gain to 1.4 percent. All 68 stocks on the benchmark equity gauge dropped today.
Iron-ore producer Vale SA, whose top export market is China, retreated from a six-week high. Phone company Oi SA headed for its biggest weekly decline in almost three years as shareholders of Portugal Telecom SGPS SA considered the sale of some assets that are part of a merger between the companies.
The producer prices of China, Brazil’s main trading partner, dropped 3.3 percent in December from a year earlier, the most since 2012, pushing the Bloomberg Base Metals 3-Month Price Commodity Index 0.5 percent down. Commodity producers account for about one-quarter of the Ibovespa’s weighting.
Brazil’s benchmark stock index entered a bear market Dec. 12 after falling 22 percent from last year’s high in September through that day. Trading volume of equities in Sao Paulo was 6.02 billion reais ($2.26 billion) yesterday, according to the exchange. That compares with a daily average of 7.29 billion reais in 2014.
