Middle East Tensions Boost the Dollar and Pressure Global Costs

This analysis marks the seventh consecutive mention with a strictly negative tone in our recent editorial archives, corroborating the risk-off outlook seen throughout the quarter, which has already accumulated unfavorable editorials on corporate consumption, pressured retail exchange rates, and institutional fiscal clashes. From the perspective of structural macroeconomics, we place this geopolitical shock in the phase of global liquidity tightening and reallocation, where capital abandons emerging economies in search of the sovereign safety of the United States. When geopolitical instability overrides local fundamentals, foreign flows rapidly decelerate, imposing a risk premium that directly affects the assets of commodity-exporting countries.

Deepening structural risks, uncertainty in the Gulf threatens to choke the flow of raw materials and pressure the operating margins of energy-intensive companies and international transport. Each exchange rate fluctuation of 2.12% over weekly periods reduces the financial planning predictability of Brazilian companies, which struggle to pass on costs to consumers already squeezed by restrictive interest rates. The exchange market acts as a hyper-sensitive thermometer for armed conflicts, immediately translating threats to military lives and the potential closure of strategic maritime routes into acute volatility for global and local portfolios.

For the 30-day horizon, heightened exchange rate volatility is projected, with the dollar testing higher resistances should the Persian conflict gain new diplomatic or military developments, keeping the IPCA under indirect pressure from imported costs. In a 90-day horizon, the trend points to a partial accommodation of international oil prices, although the geopolitical risk premium is expected to remain at elevated levels, limiting the decline of protective derivative premiums. Over a 180-day horizon, markets tend to partially absorb the initial shock, but the accumulated inflation of 4.44% will serve as a floor for contractual adjustments and pass-throughs.