Month-end purchases kept the Mexican peso stable even after the country's central bank backed away from a threat to raise interest rates. Higher rates could further increase the appeal of the currency. The Brazilian real fell 0.6 percent to 2.1085 per dollar after the government statistics agency IBGE said gross domestic product expanded 0.6 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter.
Economists expected the economy to grow 1.2 percent in that comparison. Second-quarter growth was also revised down to only 0.2 percent, half what had been previously reported. Also contributing to the real's weakness were dollar outflows that normally take place at the end of the month, when companies send profits abroad.
"Today is the end of the month, so we're seeing some outflows," said Ures Folchini, a treasury vice president at WestLB bank in Sao Paulo. Folchini bets the real will gradually weaken as the government continues to favour a weaker currency to boost the economy, but warns of inflation risks. "We need to be very careful. We can't have the real weakening too much to help the economy while, on the other hand, inflation erodes those gains."