Brazil's real nears all-time low

Brazil's real slid back to within sight of its all-time low against the dollar on Wednesday, pressured by the deteriorating economic growth outlook for Brazil, which could leave the door open to even lower interest rates later this year.

Traders also digested comments the previous day from central bank officials on currency market intervention, including from bank president Roberto Campos Neto, and from President Jair Bolsonaro on his support for Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.

In early trading on Wednesday the US dollar rose as high as 4.3740 reais, within one centavo of last week's record high 4.3830 that prompted the central bank's $2 billion intervention in the foreign exchange swaps market.

Campos Neto said on Tuesday that the bank stands ready to intervene again to address illiquidity, excessive market moves or currency weakness fueling inflation expectations. But he also stressed the real has a free-floating exchange rate.

Speaking at an event in Sao Paulo on Tuesday, Fabio Kanczuk, central bank economic policy director, said that the real "goes where it goes" and that the central bank only acts if there are problems with market functioning, according to local media.

Some traders also said President Bolsonaro's public show of support on Tuesday for Guedes, who was forced to apologize recently for likening public sector workers to "parasites," may not have been as robust as it could have been.

"That's creating some discomfort," said one senior trader in Sao Paulo.

Political consultancy Arko Advice said the chances of Guedes leaving his post are "remote" but added there are persistent rumblings of division between Guedes and Bolsonaro over the economic reform process.

All this comes against a steady deterioration in the growth outlook, with many economists cutting their 2020 forecasts to around 2.0% due to the coronavirus outbreak in China, Brazil's largest trading partner.