Foreign investors find Lula easier to love than locals
Brazilian investors are often more critical of Lula than foreign counterparts, who remember his two terms in office in 2003-2010 not for leftwing extremism but prosperity fuelled by a commodities boom and orthodox policymaking.
Will investors learn to love Lula? The stock market recorded a small drop followed by a small gain, suggesting that foreign bullishness had won out over the bearishness of locals.
Sentiment towards Brazilian assets teeters on a knife edge, just as the election result did. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftwing former metalworker and two-times former president, beat Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing incumbent, by just 1.8 percentage points – a little over 2 million of the 118.5 million votes counted.
