Brazilian real: lower and lower
Twenty-three per cent and counting.
That's the amount the Brazilian real has fallen against the US dollar this year after the currency took another sharp leg down on Monday.
The real was trading 1 per cent lower at 3.45 per dollar in early afternoon trading in New York, its weakest level since March 2003.
Although the real has struggled against the dollar for a better part of the last two years, the currency has come under renewed pressure in recent weeks as the commodity rout hit financial crisis levels and a fast growing domestic political crisis threatens to derail efforts to restore order to public finances.
Pressure on the currency has intensified after Standard & Poor's last week cut its outlook on Brazil's credit rating to negative - putting the country on the precipice of losing its hard-won investment grade status.
The outlook for Latin America's largest economy has also darkened as the country's economic malaise proves longer and deeper than previously expected.
The latest central-bank survey of 100 economists published on Monday showed that Brazil's gross domestic product is expected to contract 1.8 per cent this year, compared with a contraction of 1.4 per cent forecast just four weeks ago. Growth for 2016 has also been cut to just 0.2 per cent, down from the 1.8 per cent expansion forecast at the start of the year.