Brazil’s real fell the most this year after the central bank refrained from calling an auction to roll over foreign-exchange swaps, adding to speculation that it is easing support for the currency.
The real declined 1.3 percent to 2.2436 per U.S. dollar at the close of trade in Sao Paulo, the worst performance among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The drop was the biggest since Dec. 11, pushing the currency down 0.3 percent for the week.
The central bank avoided scheduling an auction for today to extend maturities on swaps contracts due next month, marking the first time since April 3 that it didn’t call such a sale. The sale of swaps under a program to support the real and limit import price increases has helped it rally 5.2 percent this year, the most among 24 emerging-market currencies.
The central bank, which usually sends statements calling rollover auctions the night before at 6:30 p.m. Sao Paulo time, declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News. It rolled over about $6.5 billion of the $8.7 billion in currency swaps due May 2. In March, the bank extended the maturity on about $7.5 billion of $10.6 billion of swap contracts due April 1. Brazil did sell $198.2 million of foreign-exchange swaps today.
In the interest-rate futures market, swap rates on contracts maturing in January 2015 climbed one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 11 percent.
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