Companies and capital markets

While the American and European stock markets continue to fluctuate between small gains and some losses, the Brazilian market remains in a frenetic rhythm of serious losses.

Brazil, the country of the future, is living through a delicate time of crossroads and a lack of significant regional and international investments.

The government is trying, through every possible means, to attract foreign capital, but a certain distrust prevails, which cripples investors and minority shareholders.

The recent news of the contraction in American growth has already caused shock and havoc in the local capital market.

We are a closed economy, there is no doubt about that, and the fundamental aspect is trying to diagnose the basic aspects of companies in the development of their economies in raising capital.

The stark reality is that big business revolves around a few companies, and there has always been a bias towards state-owned enterprises, including Banco do Brasil, Petrobras, and the electricity grid.

With the treatment provided by the government, we saw that one of the essential foundations of the market was undermined, and the injection of investors became increasingly smaller.

The Brazilian stock market had an auspicious performance at the beginning of the year, but that was all.

Starting in the first half of January, and with everything going smoothly, she attributes losses and bitterness to those who try, in some way, to believe that the moment is temporary.

A former Minister of Finance highlighted that now is the time to invest in the stock market, and she was betting everything that Brazil would attract large capital inflows.

However, and here's the crucial point, the largest investments have been made by Arab nations, and both Europe and the United States depend on these resources to grow and develop their projects.

We are lagging behind in infrastructure, in the port and airport system, despite the government's latent and constant concern to open up investments to private initiative.

Analysts are less optimistic about the daily decline in stock markets, and some stocks have reached a peak of agony and anxiety. While the American company Exxon is beating Apple in the oil sector, it's obvious that here in Brazil, the giant Petrobras, despite its immense efforts, is navigating rough waters and failing to instill credibility in investors, in addition to the successful maneuver by minority shareholders to reverse the losses.

Public and private funds are placing their bets, but the Brazilian market remains just a detail in the chess game of the globalized economy.

Among the indelible marks of the market, we have excessively high stock prices and others that, in comparison, are unvaluable, which consequently prevents entry into the foreign stock market.

Three measures would be fundamental: reducing costs through symmetrical competition, gradually increasing the number of companies going public on the stock exchange with strong incentives and fundraising policies, and, unequivocally, integrating with Latin American, European, and Asian stock exchanges so that transactions could take place in real time.

The number of individual investors has been steadily declining, and any slip-up is the key point for those interested to sell their positions. As long as everyone remains silent and the tax policy is perverse, we cannot expect significant progress towards a thriving capital market.

Balancing the realistic side with the more optimistic vision of so many others, once Carnival and its unrestrained revelry are over, what awakens the feeling is the approach of "D-Day".

And in the capital market, the "D" stands for "take off," but without momentum, muscle, and new rules, the strategy of attracting new company openings seems to be nearing its end, unfortunately, for the national economy as a whole.