The IPCA-15, the preview of Brazil's official inflation index, rose 0.32% in October. That is less than half September's 0.70% and below what the market expected: the median of the Reuters survey pointed to 0.43%, and Bloomberg's to 0.45%. The figure was released by the IBGE (Brazil's national statistics institute) on Friday.
The monthly slowdown did not reach the cumulative figure, though. Over twelve months the index moved from 4.47% to 4.62% — above the ceiling of the inflation target, which is 3% a year with a tolerance band of 1.5 percentage points either way, or 4.5%. For the year to date, the preview adds up to 4.15%.
The apparent contradiction is arithmetic: October 2025 had registered 0.18%. When a weak month drops out of the calculation and a stronger one comes in, the twelve-month figure rises even as the current reading decelerates.
Food pushes up, electricity pulls down
Eight of the nine groups surveyed rose. The heaviest pressure came from food and beverages, up 0.88% and accounting on its own for 0.19 percentage point — roughly two thirds of the month's index.
Within the group, food at home rose 1.01%, against 0.38% in September. The largest increases were tomatoes (24.54%), onions (13.63%), potatoes (10.96%) and rice (5.80%). Moving the other way, carrots fell 10.67%, fruit 1.37% and ground coffee 1.16%.
After food came personal expenses (0.55%), clothing (0.53%), communication (0.43%), household goods (0.28%), health and personal care (0.15%), education (0.09%) and transport (0.05%).
The only group to fall was housing, at -0.10%, after rising 2.07% in September. The turnaround is explained by residential electricity, which dropped 0.89% as the tariff flag moved from yellow to green — in September, that same item had risen 7.42%.
In transport, the almost flat result is the sum of opposing forces: fuels rose 1.20%, with diesel at 3.70%, ethanol at 2.73% and petrol at 0.92%, while air fares were 9.24% cheaper.
Eleven cities, ten of them up
Ten of the eleven areas surveyed registered increases. The largest was in Belém, at 0.76%, driven by tomatoes (17.55%) and electricity (3.71%) after a tariff adjustment. The smallest was in Curitiba, the only city in deflation, at -0.27%: there, air fares fell 11.58% and water and sewage charges 8.05%, after a 25% discount on the minimum tariff took effect on 1 October.
What the number does not yet show
For Roberto Luis Troster, who coordinates the centre for corporate financing studies at Fipe (an economic research foundation linked to the University of São Paulo), one softer monthly reading is not enough to establish a trend. "The monthly slowdown is welcome, but it still does not show a consistent downward path for inflation," he told Agência Brasil.
The IPCA-15 covers a collection period that ends in the middle of the month and works as an advance signal for the full IPCA, the index used in the target pursued by the Banco Central (Brazil's central bank). The gap between the current reading of 0.32% and the cumulative 4.62% is precisely what separates immediate relief at the supermarket from the account the monetary authority has to settle at the end of the year.
With information from the IBGE, Agência Brasil, InfoMoney and the newspaper O Tempo.
