BRAZIL: Ibovespa Falls With Pension Reform Voting Postponement

(RTTNews) - Ibovespa, the benchmark stock index in Brazil, fell 0.67% to 72,428.93 points Thursday after the House of Representatives postponed a vote on the pension overhaul bill from the end of this year to February 19.

The announcement, made by the speaker of the Brazilian House of Representatives, Rodrigo Maia, cooled investors' expectations of Congressional approval for the pension reform.

"If this year the government did not have enough votes, in the next year, an election year, there is no chance of voting such a sensitive matter," said Alfredo Sequeira, a partner at DNAinvest.

According to Vitor Suzaki, an analyst at Lerosa Investimentos, the pension reform future weighed on the market, but concerns about the tax reform in the United States also brought the Ibovespa down.

Meanwhile, the postponement of the pension reform to February 2018 led the locally traded U.S. dollar to close 0.63% higher, quoted at R$ 3,338. The greenback closing level is the highest since June 23, when it closed at R $ 3,339.