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The ebbing tide of September 2024 — and the boats that came back too soon

Episode

The extreme

The gauges screamed risk-aversion, all at once — a rare thing. Mood and risk appetite, the two domestic axes, plunged together in a single monthly passage, and fear returned to the bottom of the scale. But beneath the surface the money was doing the opposite of what the mouth was saying: it was beginning to dismantle, at the edges, the defensive fortress of the prior months. Beaten-down sectors stopped falling against the index in the very month panic was rising. In numbers: mood pulled back from 60.6 to 31.3 and appetite from 64.0 to 27.2; the Commodities/IBOV ratio jumped more than one deviation, from z −1.85 to −0.84, while Utilities gave up the top (1.37 → 0.69). Selic at 10.75% a year, the dollar at R$5.54.

What happened next

The structure read it early — and the rest of the market took its time catching up. Three months later, in December 2024, the house finished tidying up: the intermarket score surged from 35.9 to 100.0, strong risk-on. But the street was ablaze on that same panel — the dollar at R$6.097 (z 3.46), real rates near 3.8 deviations, the Selic already at 12.25%. In March 2025, six months out, mood exploded to 77.5, euphoria, with the Selic at the 14.25% ceiling — and the structure, stubborn, refused the party. Only in September 2025, twelve months later, did the skeleton bang the gavel: the cyclicals took the lead (z 0.09 → 1.18), with the rate at 15.0%.

What did not happen

September was not the bottom of fear. Anyone who read the panic as exhaustion got it wrong: in December mood opened even lower, at 14.0. The commodities boat, returning to the water, ran aground again — a year later, Commodities (R$)/IBOV stood at z −1.30. The Selic gave no respite: it rose from 10.75% to 15.0% over the stretch. And the rebuilding of margins did not turn into a quick gain: matured at six months, September 2024 returned −3.5%, below the central band, a verdict of ambiguity.

The honest verdict

The structure anticipated the destination — capital's return to the cycle — but anticipating the direction is not getting the timing right. On the six-month horizon, reading the recomposition as a buy signal would have meant a loss. When the surface and the skeleton diverge by this magnitude, neither one governs alone. The tide that ebbs marks the start of a process, not its end.

Continue reading: The two clocks of December 2024 · The Selic stuck at 14.25% · The Selic at 15% and the euphoria that yields →

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