The financial market experienced the first months of the year with expectations of Selic between 8.5% and 9% at the end of 2024. But with the deterioration of the scenario in the United States, economic agents are already pricing basic interest rates between 9.5% and 10% in Brazil, and a cut of 0.25 percentage points at the next Copom meeting – and no longer 0.5 points.
In a recent report, XP recalls that, in December, it expected a benign global scenario, which would give room for the start of interest cuts in the United States in the first half of the year, but “this positive external environment did not materialize”, which made the house revise the Selic projection to 10% at the end of this year.
Itaú also revised its base scenario for 2024, projecting the first interest rate cut in the United States only for December – just like XP. “Strong economic activity and more persistent inflation should lead the Fed to wait longer and collect more data,” says the bank in a report.
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Given the changes in the macroeconomic scenario, future interest rates rose, public bonds started to pay more and the Stock Exchange suffered a significant drop in April, which makes investors ask themselves: is it time to review the portfolio?
Know your investor profile
Before making any portfolio decision, investors must know their limits and know how much risk and volatility they can bear in the portfolio. The tip is not repeated for nothing: knowing yourself as an investor is essential to choosing the best assets for your pocket.
“I see investors who increase exposure to risky assets beyond what they should and become very insecure, when volatility shouldn’t bother so much if the assets are suitable for the profile”, says Isabel Lemos, fixed income manager at Fator.
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Therefore, feeling uncomfortable with the risk that the portfolio carries may be related to exaggerated optimism while the stock market was doing well. “We understand that it is necessary to look at the data from a certain distance, without making many short-term movements”, points out Lemos.
What to do on fixed income
For Marcelo Fatio, founding partner and CCO of Asset 1, fixed income remains very attractive, with high real interest rates, which should delay the investor’s return to variable income. “This is not bad; Fixed income will remain a good option until we see an improvement in the scenario”, he adds.
IPCA+ Treasury bonds are currently preferred. “Today, they offer very high real interest rates and I think this migration is reasonable,” says Bruno Carvalho, founding partner and fixed income manager at Asset 1.
For Asset 1 experts, private credit is a good option for those who accept a little more risk in their portfolio and fixed income funds can also help investors who want to capture the best recently issued bonds: “they offer lower liquidity and higher rates lower than those of multimarket funds”, points out Carvalho.
Back to the lesson on investment profile, Caio Schettino, head of allocations at Criteria, reminds us that “in a balanced portfolio, aggressive and moderate investors will maintain the structure of the portfolios, gradually changing the positions in fixed and variable income”.
In other words, there may be a rebalancing of the portfolio, with increased exposure to fixed income – praised by Schettino –, but the migration must be done “little by little”, as a balanced and rational portfolio should not be completely changed overnight.
And on the stock market?
For investors already accustomed to the volatility of variable income and who have a certain appetite for risk, there are some options to follow in times of risk aversion. One of them is to see turbulence as an opportunity, which will depend on the investor’s reading of the scenario and a greater stomach than the average investor to withstand the volatility.
Lemos recommends looking for opportunities regardless of the sector: “those who are buying companies looking only at sectors that can benefit from the moment need to be very careful because they can see their competitors rising and their shares not”.
On the other hand, those who have shares in their portfolio can choose to reduce the risk. The most obvious way is to undo some positions on the stock exchange and buy fixed income securities. Another way to deal with the adverse scenario is to migrate to actions considered defensive. “It’s a very fine adjustment, looking at the composition of the portfolio and perhaps changing some positions to shares in companies with less volatility and constant cash flow”, says Izabel.
