US markets shake not to worry Brazil, unless Asia amplifies it to a real crisis
Brazil´s Finance Minister Guido Mantega went out from his usually calm evenings in Brasilia to call today a press conference just to say “it´s ok”. 
Yeah, I thought, but who said it isn´t ok just because Sao Paulo Stock Exchange sank some three percent points? Wasn´t that just like London, Paris, Frankfurt.. all on the footsteps of US house financing falls - 6% less new house sold and the like?
That was still not enough to call a press conference just to say: “hi, it´s everything going very well here, see?”
There might be something behind.
And so Mantega laid his not so subtle warning: for now the US house financing problems do not represent any sort of menace or danger to Brazil´s stable economy.
Foreing reserves are on an all-time record pinacle of US$ 156 billion, reminded Mantega. Balance of payment´s currence accounts were positive for Brazil on half a hundred billion dollars in the last six months, which shows we don´t need any commercial credit lines in case of world-wide crisis begun with US, followed by Asia, then the rest of us.
This is the point: Lula found a house repaired by Berkeley PhD Pedro Malan (today Unibanco´s chairman) back in 1994 with presidents Itamar Franco and then Fernando Henrique´s Real Plan, to end 30-year long high inflation rates period that had started after the second oil shock in late 70s.
Guido Mantega was like a heterodox economics teacher at Sao Paulo University when he asked Malan to write an article for a book he was coordinanting at that time - can´t remember him writing papers against the fundamentals of Real Plan economic policy, but was a PT teacher.
Like Lula´s first unlucky Finance minister, now representative Antonio Palocci (PT-SP), Mantega has been following almost strictly the blueprints laid down by Malan´s eight years period.
Fernando Henrique was reelected in 1998 and kept the economic team, which faced international crisis at that year ending with another agreement with IMF followed by a real huge devaluation.
Now real was in his best shape after the 1999 devaluation: the exchange rate was about 1 dollar for 1,8 reals, for exporters sadness.
Today, with NYSE fall reflecting on Sao Paulo stock market´s down to 3 negative points, as well as on other domestic financial markets in Brazil: the real was devaluated about 8% in just few hours, closing at 1,92 reals for one US dollar.
But everything is ok and in case it isn´t ok Lula´s Finance minister says he´s prepared to take care of it all.
No worry, then - even when Emerging Markets Bond Index Plus (EMBI+) for Brazil was going up 21 points today, reaching again the 205 mark - highest since last december, according to JP Mogan´s “country risk” for emerging economies like Brazil.
That was the opposite of what it was supposed to happen, to Finance Ministry´s view of the universe.
Mantega team expected - they still say they keep on waiting - for improving Brazil´s rate for investors in such a way that this year international risk estimating agencies would probably graduate the country to never-reached-before Investment Grade.
That means no extra price over the US Treasury bonds levels of risk.
Now, they´d like to wait to see what´s going on the next hours and days, specially in the Asia huge markets where any small jumping up could be perceived as a 3.5 points earthquake for world´s emerging economies.
Brazil could suffer, in case the American house-financing problem spreads to Asian market, creating a real crisis over there.
In this case, Mantega explained this evening to newspeople in Brasilia, Brazil could face serious problems with raw materials exportations to China and Japan, for instance, as the prices would fall as the importers face troubles and reduce demand.
Yeah, but nobody thinks this is actually going to happen - it´s just in case, you know, in hard times here in Brazil. Last week it was the Congonhas airport air tragedy with 199 deaths (total 350 including the collision over Amazonian sky with the american Legacy executive jet 10 months ago).
It´s a lot of troubles to face, so much that in Brazil nobody´s paying much attention to economic indicators inside the US house market…
Would it be, say, high technology virtual markets, ok - but old real estate stuff?
Yeah, let´s wait for China first. Still no news down here. Which means good news for money owners around.
Yet.
Not just a shake, this is like to slow down our growth and in this case the rest of the world tends to do the same - to grow less then predicted before on optimistic frameworks.