Country leads emerging countries, says American bank
Folha de S. Paulo - 02/28/2008
For the first time, Brazil surpassed China as the largest stock market among the emerging countries, according to the index calculated by American Bank Morgan Stanley. The conclusion was reported by the Citigroup and indicates that Brazil has 14.95% of influence in the index and surpassed China (14.15%) and South Korea (13.69%). The research measures the size of each of the stock markets according to the "free float". The largest company in market value among the emerging countries, as the research points out, is Petrobras. The second is Russian Gazprom, giant of the gas sector, and the third one is Brazilian Vale. Ricardo Amorim, director of research and strategy on Latin America of WestLB, declares that the Citicorp's study shows Brazil as one of the countries whose economy has best resisted to the American crisis. Amorim, however, says the classification of Petrobras as the largest company among the emerging markets is relative, once the report only takes into account the stocks from China available to foreign investors and excludes the stocks made available to the Chinese, which causes distortions. "The largest Chinese companies beat the greatest American companies in market value". On the future of the Brazilian economy, the report says that the country is in the way to be the 10th largest stock market of the world, with 1.71% of influence in the international index issued by Morgan Stanley. According to the Citigroup, even though the good moment tents to consolidate in the long term, the situation may turn around in the short term. The group says Brazil "ignores risks of all kinds", such as the high interest rates.