International news has once again set the tone for business with the dollar At Brazil this Thursday, with the US currency in sight swinging higher against the real for most of the day as global investors fled riskier assets, before ending the session near flat.

O dollar spot closed the day quoted at 4.9923 reais on sale, down 0.01%.

AT B3, at 5:15 p.m. (from Brasilia)the dollar futures contract for the first month fell 0.03% to 5.0195 reais.

At the opening of business, the currency of UNITED STATES hit a low of 4.9699 (-0.45%) at 9:32 a.m. amid perceptions that the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision the previous day on the Selic base rate paved the way for lower quotes.

Wednesday evening, the Copom maintained the Selic at 13.75% a year and released a statement that left little to no room for the start of the interest rate cut cycle at the next college meeting in June.

But the bearish bias did not hold. Even in the morning, the dollar jumped into positive territory, in line with the rest of the world, where the US currency also gained ground against the currencies of other commodity exporters.

Behind the movement are concerns about the crisis of banks American regions and their potential impact on economic activity.

PacWest Bancorp confirmed it was exploring strategic options, including a sale, while Canada’s Toronto-Dominion banking group canceled its $13.4 billion acquisition of First Horizon Corp.

“It’s a day of risk aversion. We are again with this story of North American regional banks and suddenly the stock exchanges are operating in negative territory and investors are fleeing to the dollar,” commented Jefferson Rugik, director of Correparti Corretora, in the afternoon.

Near the close, however, the US currency weakened against the real and approached stability.

A trader polled by Reuters said the currency’s rise, while in line with the rest of the world, was not warranted given the scenario of Brazil maintaining high interest rates for a longer period .

Abroad, at the end of the afternoon, the dollar maintained a slight appreciation against a basket of currencies.

At 5:15 p.m. (Brasília time), the dollar index – which measures the performance of the US currency against a basket of six currencies – rose 0.18%, to 101.410.

In the morning, the Central Bank sold all 16,000 traditional FX swaps offered as part of the June rollover.