May 7 (Bloomberg) — The Brazilian cure is called Engov. The advertising slogan says to take one pill before and another after drinking alcohol to avoid a hangover.
When you consider the celebrating by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his economic team on the May 1 Labor Day holiday over the awarding of an investment-grade rating for Brazil, let’s hope they took a double dose of Engov.
On April 30, Standard & Poor’s raised its long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating on Brazil to BBB- from BB+. The extra B means much more than a simple additional consonant in the alphabet used by rating companies. It means that, for the first time, Brazilian sovereign debt is considered investment grade rather than speculative or junk.
Analysts had figured that Brazil would become investment grade sometime in 2008 or 2009, but the announcement by S&P was a surprise. Several analysts expected rating companies to pace the timing of the upgrade against the threat of a U.S.-led global economic slowdown. Others said rating companies probably would be more careful after granting investment-grade status to mortgage- backed securities that later proved unworthy of their ratings. Leggi il seguito di questo post »
