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The appetite with no fixed address — October 2010 and the leadership that changed houses every month

Episode

The extreme

Brazilian money was in a good mood, but it couldn't sit still. In three months, it switched protagonists three times — cyclicals in July, banks in September, and now raw materials. The appetite never left the stage; it merely changed houses: it bought, it stretched, and it moved on. In October, the new home was commodities priced in reais, pushed to the most stretched point in the entire ranking. In numbers: the Commodities (R$)/IBOV ratio jumped from 1.23 to 2.45, while the cyclical axis gave back nearly two deviations (from 2.92 to 1.18). The Perene Risk Index rose to 87.6, near the top; the dollar closed at R$ 1.6835, the strongest real in the series.

What happened next

The change of address held — for a while. In January 2011, commodities consolidated the leadership (Commodities/IBOV from 0.68 to 1.88), but the appetite thermometer, firm at 87.6 three months earlier, plunged to 2.8, brushing the floor of the scale. In April, capital was already changing houses again, now toward real estate funds (IFIX/IBOV from 0.30 to 2.85), drawn by contracted income at a 12%-a-year rate. And in October 2011, the home that October 2010 had inaugurated was abandoned: the Commodities/IBOV ratio sank to -1.77, from the top of the ranking to the worst spot in twelve months.

What did not happen

October's firmness did not last. Anyone who read the Perene Risk at 87.6 as settled appetite would have been caught off guard by January's floor. And the leadership of commodities was no throne — it was a rented room. The same restlessness that crowned them evicted them a year later. Nor did the rotation stop at raw materials: the money kept changing neighborhoods, never settling into a permanent residence.

The honest verdict

The reading got the regime right — broad appetite, leadership in transit — but anyone who confused the tenant of the month with the owner of the house would have been wrong. The mood was real; the address, provisional. A convinced appetite buys and stays. This one bought, stretched, took profit, and moved neighborhoods.

Continue reading: The money re-enters through the banks · The end of the commodities' reign · The start of 2011 in the squeeze →

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Characters: Structure (intermarket) · Flow (risk appetite) · Mood · Dollar