Brazil's stocks fell on Friday as the country's finance minister, a favourite of investors, was caught in a political row before October's presidential vote.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Antonio Palocci, the chief architect of Brazil's economic policies, will stay in office despite opposition efforts to link him to corruption schemes.
On the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, the benchmark Bovespa index fell 0.28 percent to 38,049.1 points in volatile trade before options on blue chip stocks expire on Monday.
The market fell even as Brazil's central bank signalled on Thursday that interest rates will continue to fall. In the minutes from its last policy meeting the bank said low inflation may allow it to cut rates for the seventh straight time since September to spur economic growth.
Oil driller Petrobras, the most heavily weighted stock in the index, lost 2.06 percent to 42.80 reais and banking giant Bradesco rose 0.45 percent to 86.40.
The country's currency, the real, weakened 0.76 percent to 2.126 per dollar after finishing on Thursday at its strongest since March 2001.
Traders said they wanted to guard against any fallout from any articles about the scandal that news magazines might publish over the weekend.
"The political scene isn't the best, and brought the market off a bit, but not enough to put the real into a losing trend," said Jorge Knauer, head of currencies at Prosper brokerage.
The real was helped on Thursday as Brazil's Treasury reopened a global bond, raising $500 million and taking advantage of falling risk premiums for emerging markets.
Local markets were also helped this week by hopes the US Federal Reserve will soon stop raising interest rates, traders said. Rising US rates lure capital away from emerging markets such as Brazil.
The real has strengthened about 10 percent so far this year, buoyed by record exports and high domestic interest rates of 16.5 percent that foreign investors find attractive.
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