BRASIL: Analysts Cutting "Buy" Rating For Stocks.

BLOOMBERG/
Emerging markets analysts have cut their “buy” ratings on Brasil for the fifth straight month as the world’s biggest gains push equities to their priciest levels in six years. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has presided over a more than fivefold surge in the Bovespa stock index and 105 percent rise in the real against the dollar, the most among emerging-market currencies. Annual inflation tumbled from a peak of 17.2 percent in May 2003 to 4.17 percent last month. The economy has grown an average of 4.1 percent annually since he took office in 2003, helped by an 18 percent rise in the Reuters-Jefferies index of 19 raw materials, and a drop in interest rates to record lows.