Last week, Aecio Neves was an afterthought heading into Sunday’s national elections in Brazil with most observers predicting President Dilma Rousseff and Marina Silva to advance to an Oct. 26 runoff, but by the times polls closed in Brazil, Neves looked every part the upstart, stunning onlookers on his way to a second-place showing.
With the release of the first Neves/Rousseff poll Wednesday evening, the pro-markets Neves is no longer an upstart thorn in the incumbent Rousseff’s side. He is looking very much like the next president of Latin America’s largest economy and that could add fuel to fire of rallying Brazil exchange traded funds such as the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWZ). [Neves Rally for Brazil ETFs]
“Neves has 49 percent of voter support, compared to 41 percent for Rousseff, with 5 percent undecided and 5 percent saying they wouldn’t vote, according to the survey conducted by institute Parana Pesquisas,” reports Anna Edgerton for Bloomberg.
Said another way, even if the entire margin of error favors Rousseff and she lands all the undecided voters, she would still lose to Neves.
Markets seem to like the idea of a Neves presidency. EWZ, the largest Brazil ETF, has surged 8.2% since last Friday. That after the ETF tumbled 21.6% from the start of September through the start of this month, entering a new bear market in the process. [Brazil ETF Nears Bear Market]