Earthquake can’t shake Brazil’s currency

"Even a nuclear crisis can’t stop the Brazilian currency from appreciating, it seems," says Samantha Pearson in a blog post for The Financial Times. The disaster in Japan ought to be bad for Brazil because Japanese have a lot of money invested here. Except Japanese invesors are staying put, and so has the value of Brazil's currency. The real has basically remained stable despite the Brazilian goverment's repeated efforts to make the overvalued currency appreciate. Strangely, things they've done to try to make the real cheaper—namely, placing a 6 percent tax on money coming into the country—actually seem to be keeping the currency's value high. Because of the tax, investors who want to pull their money out of Brazil have to to make dead sure they won't ever want back in, otherwise, they'll lose that 6 percent. And Brazil's extremely high interest rates and growing economy mean—whatever disasters there are overseas—the country still seems like a good investment.