Radar Perene / Archive / episode

June 2013: the street and the market were reading different countries

◦ Written under index methodology v1 (in effect until 15 Jul 2026). The current series is v2 — readings quoted here may differ from those shown today. See the methodology.

Episode

The extreme

Whoever remembers June 2013 remembers the streets — not the spreadsheet. The largest dislocation the Radar logged that month was not in the public squares: it was silent and mechanical, inside the exchange itself. The raw material, measured in reais, pulled away from the broad index to a point the archive barely knew — and it was the dollar doing most of the work. In numbers: the Commodities (R$)/IBOV ratio jumped into territory the archive almost never records, while the same pair measured in dollars stayed behind the index, merely closing the gap. The Perene Risk Index, which May had left at zero, rebuilt half the scale to 49.0. Selic at 8.0% a year, the dollar at R$ 2.173.

What happened next

The extreme did not last. Three months later, in September, the balloon deflated through the same door it had risen by: the Commodities (R$)/IBOV ratio crossed back below its own mean in the same month, and capital made an about-face toward the defensives. By December, six months on, the raw material in reais was barely breathing, back to ordinary behavior, with utilities leading the shape of the exchange. And in June 2014, twelve months later, the sector was in open disadvantage. Along the way, the Selic rose without pause — 8.0%, 9.0%, 10.0%, 11.0% — and the dollar went from R$ 2.17 to R$ 2.34 before easing.

What did not happen

June's rare territory announced neither a top that would collapse nor a lasting leadership for the raw material. There was no crash: domestic appetite, far from breaking with the streets, recovered — the Perene Risk went from zero to 49.0 at the peak of the protests. And the extreme reading was not a verdict on the sector's value. It was, in large part, currency arithmetic: when the real gives way, the converted commodity rises mechanically, and the ratio against an exchange priced in reais inflates with it. The engine itself flagged it that month — a statistical anomaly, to be read with care, not as a sign of expensive or cheap.

The honest verdict

A rare extreme is not always a meaningful extreme. The highest signal of June 2013 measured the dollar, not conviction — and the story that followed was one of deflation, not rupture. The street and the market, that month, were reading different countries.

Continue reading: Commodities in reais, when the currency rules the price · The dollar as a regime thermometer · The 2013 taper tantrum, the imported scare →

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