Brazilian Lawmakers May Trim President’s Pension Overhaul Plan

Brazil’s pension reform is likely to be passed in the first half of 2019, its president says, although perhaps a smaller version than he envisions.

Jair Bolsonaro told local media Wednesday that his proposal, submitted to the nation’s Congress late last month, will pass because lawmakers understand the importance of the matter. The question is how much of a change the lawmakers will accept.

Pension reform is one of Brazil’s top priorities to turn around its struggling economy. The president’s proposal aims to increase the minimum retirement ages for both men and women, extend the length that workers contribute to the social security system, and cut benefits for rural employees and military personnel. Bolsonaro projects this to generate more than 1 trillion real ($262.5 billion) in savings over the next decade.

Congress, however, may have other plans. Analysts have recently suggested lawmakers could introduce changes that would slash savings by more than half, to 500 billion real, a notion that drew the ire of Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.

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“But if Congress dilutes that to only 500 [billion], you end up condemning your children and grandchildren, there’s no individual retirement funds, and the old system stays in place,” Guedes said at a Wednesday ceremony commemorating the swearing-in of Roberto Campos Neto as the new president of Brazil’s central bank.

Rogerio Marinho, secretary of social security and labor at the Economy Ministry, told Reuters that Brazil’s parliament would discuss the bill and “make modifications, even improvements.” He said a May vote is possible.

“In terms of timing, we are able to meet our deadlines. Everything will depend on the dynamics of the debating process in parliament,” he told Reuters. “We know pension reform is not an easy process. But we’re very happy to have that debate.”

The bill must pass in both houses of Congress to become law.

Bolsonaro will head to the US next week for a private meeting with President Donald Trump during which they will discuss ongoing issues in Venezuela.

Tags: Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, Paulo Guedes, Pension Reform

Climbing the ever-present wall of worry, stock investors fear that we are in for an earnings tumble this year. And the market, which views earnings as the leading indicator for its future, doesn’t take kindly to such a dour prospect.

There’s a case to be made, though, that an earnings recession—defined as two successive quarters of earnings per share decline—will not happen. Yes, S&P 500 earnings likely won’t be as robust as we saw in 2018, which featured double-digit advances for each period. (Reports for last year’s final quarter, almost completed, indicate an increase of around 15%.)

Why the drop in EPS growth? Economic slowdowns in China and Europe, the trade war, and some discouraging signals in the US, such as Thursday’s report on January’s slip in new-home sales, marking the third month of lower numbers, are all factors. The partial government shutdown didn’t help.

One reason that the current quarter (January-March) is expected to show an earnings decline is that the results will be compared to 2018’s strong first quarter, which logged a 15.1% increase. “The Q1 2019 earnings reporting period is rapidly approaching,” wrote Sam Stovall, CFRA’s chief investment strategist, in a research note. “Now the tough sledding begins.”

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The latest investors’ survey shows a rise in pessimism, with a 4.3 percentage point climb from the week before, to 31.1% bearish. The survey, from the American Association of Individual Investors, still indicated an edge for bullishness (32.4%), but that was down 5 points.

The analysts’ consensus, according to FactSet Research Systems, is for a 3.4% EPS decrease for the first quarter. But then comes a muted, but positive and accelerating, growth pattern: 0.2% in the second quarter, 1.7% in the third, and 8.1% in the fourth. Admittedly, these forecasts are highly changeable. At the end of last December, the estimate was for a 2.8% increase in the current quarter.

Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, draws encouragement from progress on the Sino-American trade tiff talks and renewed Chinese economic stimulus—which should at least prevent earnings tumbling into negative territory up ahead.

“An earnings recession in the short term requires everything to go wrong,” he wrote in a note. “But just as everything almost never goes right, it makes no sense to bet on everything going wrong either.”

Tags: Earnings, Economy, S&P 500