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The optimism that lit itself — August 2022

◦ 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

It was optimism with no audience. While the rest of the world still read risk with caution, the Brazilian investor found a reason to breathe that no one abroad shared: a deflationary surprise. Prices pulled back, mood lit up, and the market began to reorganize like someone betting on the end of a fire. Except this confidence was born detached from everything around it. In numbers: the Ânima index jumped from 47.1 to 64.4 and the internal risk gauge went from 64.6 to 87.0 — risk-on defined — while global risk read 32.5, in risk-off. Underneath, capital swapped commodities (Commodities/IBOV from -1.35 to -2.17) for cyclicals and banks (Financials/IBOV from 1.84 to 2.20). The Selic, fixed at 13.75% over negative inflation, was paying idle cash a rare real rate.

What happened next

The optimism did not become a trend; it became a pendulum. In November, three months later, the mood collapsed — Ânima fell from 75.0 to 45.9 and internal risk plunged from 88.4 to 25.9, back to risk-off. In February 2023 it lit up and went dark again, with Ânima retreating from 67.6 to 26.6. And when mood finally reignited to the extreme, in mid-2023, it was the appetite for risk that collapsed: in August 2023 the Perene Risk Index went from 85.4 to 0.0 in a single month, while Ânima merely shed its excess. The gauge lit up and went dark; the machinery underneath ran on another clock.

What did not happen

August's optimism did not open a cycle of sustained appetite. The deflationary surprise that lit it did not last — the IPCA accelerated again to 0.84% as early as February. The Selic did not give way to validate the euphoria: it stayed at 13.75% for almost a year and still read 13.25% a year later. And the divergence with the world did not resolve in favor of home: it was domestic mood that, time and again, returned to the neighborhood of global discomfort — not the other way around.

The honest verdict

The mood gauge got the month's pulse right, but not the direction of the cycle. Optimism that lights itself — detached from the world, with cash earning so much — is the kind that swings, not the kind that holds. Mood is the most volatile part of the set: it climbs forty points in a month and gives them back in the next. Whoever read it as conviction read it wrong; it was only a breath.

Continue reading: Ânima vs. Perene Risk — mood against appetite · The house in the dark — 2022 · High Selic vs. low Selic — the mood in each rate →

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Characters: Mood