The Brazilian real regained ground on Tuesday (27), with the dollar closing down 1.07% at R$ 5.349, while the Ibovespa, Brazil's main stock index, slipped 0.51% to 175,710 points, according to Agência Brasil. It was the first settling session after Monday's rout, when markets reacted to the reelection of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Even with the pullback, the U.S. currency remains more expensive than before Sunday's runoff, which keeps pressure on the price of imported goods, from electronics to fuel.
In practice, Tuesday's drop shaved about 6 centavos off the dollar compared with Monday's close. On a US$ 100 purchase from a foreign website, that is roughly R$ 6, less than a snack. The relief is small next to Monday's 8.21% surge, the currency's biggest one-day jump since January 1999.
For 2026 as a whole, the dollar is still down 2.55% against the real. During Tuesday's session, it touched an intraday low of R$ 5.316, around 10:45 a.m.
Understand: why the election shook markets
Before the runoff, many investors had bet on a victory by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, and on a fiscal adjustment agenda, meaning spending cuts and balanced public accounts. When Lula won, those bets were unwound at once, knocking the stock market down almost 14% on Monday, its worst session since 2020, according to InfoMoney. The Ibovespa tracks the most traded shares on B3, the São Paulo exchange, including Petrobras, Vale and the big banks.
Monday's damage reached R$ 734 billion in market value across companies listed on B3, according to a survey by consultancy Elos Ayta reported by InfoMoney. Spread across Brazil's population, that is more than R$ 3,400 per person wiped out in a single session, although the losses sit mostly with large investors and funds. On Tuesday, trading volume totaled R$ 72.23 billion.
Among the day's movers, Petrobras shares fell 2%, dragged down by weaker Brent crude abroad. The closing oil price varies by source: Agência Brasil puts Brent at US$ 109.41 a barrel, down 1.20%, while InfoMoney reports US$ 113.88, down 1.8%. Vale dropped 2.14%, and retailer Magazine Luiza jumped 8.49%, recovering part of Monday's 58% collapse.
On the government side, Finance Minister Dario Durigan reaffirmed that the economic team will pursue the center of the fiscal target and that the proposal will be discussed with Congress. Central Bank president Gabriel Galípolo said the institution may step into the foreign exchange market if it identifies dysfunctions, meaning moves outside normal supply and demand patterns.
For analyst Matheus Villela of asset manager Aware Investments, investor focus has shifted from the election result to the conduct of economic policy. "The market is waiting, above all, for the name of the next Finance Minister and for some concrete signal from the government of commitment to balanced public accounts," he told InfoMoney. Until that happens, volatility is likely to stay high, with prices reacting to every headline from Brasília.