Lula wins new presidential term in Brazil with 51.79% of valid votes
Key Facts
Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court announced the re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president on October 25, after he received 64,256,232 votes, equal to 51.79% of valid votes. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro came second with 59,826,041 votes, or 48.21%, according to official results. The outcome settled a close contest that ended with Lula winning the runoff. In Asian trading after the result was announced, November Brazilian real futures fell 10%, while a Brazil-listed fund in Tokyo declined 15%, according to a Reuters report carried by UOL Economia. Markets had moved ahead of the vote on bets of a political shift, making the result the focus of a repricing of Brazilian assets.
Lula’s victory came after Bolsonaro finished ahead in the first round, winning 47.03% of the vote on October 4 against Lula’s 45.16%, according to Senado Notícias. It was the first time a Brazilian presidential candidate had led an opponent in the first round and then lost in the second, according to the results context reported in the sources. The second-round count reflected the close race: Lula took the lead first, before Bolsonaro moved ahead at 19:46 local time. Bolsonaro held the lead for 38 minutes, then Lula regained it at 20:24 and stayed ahead until the count was complete. Luis Felipe Vital, head of macroeconomic strategy at Warren Investimentos, said the market could see a "sharp reaction on Monday, with a strong repricing and a wave of selling in assets."
A total of 128.2 million voters took part in the second round, out of more than 158 million eligible voters, according to the Superior Electoral Court. The court put abstention at about 19.2%, compared with 21.08% in the first round. Senado Notícias reported a final abstention rate of 19.21% in the second round, saying it was the lowest for a runoff since 2018. Blank and invalid ballots accounted for 3.24%, the agency reported. Lower abstention accompanied broad participation in a round that decided a close race, with the two candidates remaining close in their shares of valid votes. Voting was extended by two hours, delaying the count after problems with buses assigned to transport voters in São Paulo and Salvador and heavy rain in southern Brazil, according to the Associated Press.
Brazilian stocks closed Friday, October 23, about 7% above their level before the first round, while the real was about 5% stronger against the dollar, according to Reuters. Those earlier gains suggest trading before the result included bets on a political shift. After Lula’s re-election, currency futures and the Brazilian equity fund fell in Asian trading, reversing the direction of those bets. Investing.com reported that StoneCo shares fell 34.7% in premarket trading on October 26, but that figure reflects a premarket snapshot and does not represent the session close. Available EL7 data showed the stock closing at $11.48 on October 23, before the result was announced; that close alone therefore does not establish the stock’s subsequent move.
At the company level, StoneCo’s second-quarter 2026 results showed revenue and income from continuing operations totaling 3,587.4 million Brazilian reais, up 2.5% year on year, according to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Adjusted net income from continuing operations, by contrast, was 582.7 million reais, down 2.6% from the same period a year earlier. The credit portfolio was 3,752.0 million reais, up 107.5% year on year, while credit revenue rose 153.0% to 348.5 million reais. The results provide background on the company’s business in the Brazilian market, while post-election trading volatility came amid broader moves in domestic assets. Google Finance lists the next earnings report date as November 12, 2026, a forthcoming milestone for tracking the company’s results.
Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat and called for the election results to be annulled, according to the Associated Press. Lula said after his victory was announced that he would govern for all Brazilians. The president-elect begins his fourth non-consecutive term on January 5, 2027, according to Senado Notícias. Before then, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics is scheduled to publish its monthly Continuous National Household Sample Survey for the September 2026 reference period on October 30. The survey release is a near-term economic date for tracking Brazilian labor-market data, although the open official schedule does not include a forecast for the unemployment rate. The election result and subsequent asset moves remain the main developments in the period leading up to the transfer of power.