Brazil’s Stock Market Declines 10 Percent
May 18th, 2017Via: CNN:
Brazil’s stock market, Bovespa, plunged more than 10% immediately after opening Thursday, wiping out almost all of its gains for the year. Officials halted trading for 30 minutes.
Brazil’s currency, the real, also tanked 7% against the dollar, its worst day since the global financial crisis in 2008.
The selloff came after new bribery allegations surfaced against Brazil’s president, Michel Temer.
A prominent Brazilian newspaper, O Globo, reported Wednesday night that Temer paid a bribe to the former House Speaker in Congress, Eduardo Cunha, to stay silent while Cunha serves a prison term.
O Globo said there were recordings of conversations between the two in which the alleged bribe occurred.
The news comes as Brazil is already suffering through record-high unemployment and its worst recession in history.
The country has been embroiled in an infamous bribery scandal for over three years known as Operation Car Wash and involving its biggest company Petrobras. It has entangled the past two presidents, all political parties and imprisoned billionaires.
