Nu Stock Jumps 10% as Flávio Bolsonaro Leads Lula in First Round

Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU) shares jumped 11% to $14.90 in premarket trading Monday as Brazilian assets rallied after Flávio Bolsonaro finished the first round of Brazil’s presidential election 1.87 percentage points ahead of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reversing Datafolha’s final valid-vote point estimates that had Lula three points in front.

NU Is Moving With a Much Bigger Brazil Rally

NU’s move is not happening in isolation. The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF was pointing to a double-digit gain. U.S.-listed Brazilian shares were also sharply higher: Vale rose about 6%, Bradesco and Itaú Unibanco gained more than 10%, and Petrobras’ U.S.-listed shares advanced about 8% in premarket trading.

Datafolha’s final poll showed Lula with 45% of valid votes and Flávio Bolsonaro with 42%, although the pollster classified the result as a technical tie within its ±2-point margin of error.

With 100% of voting sections tallied, data from Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) showed Bolsonaro received 47.03% of valid votes, compared with 45.16% for Lula.

Neither candidate received more than 50%, so Bolsonaro and Lula will face each other in a runoff on Oct. 25. 

That broad move is important for understanding NU. Vontobel portfolio manager Thierry Larose told Reuters that markets were likely to give Bolsonaro the benefit of the doubt on fiscal responsibility. Pedro Galdi, an investment analyst at AGF Investments, said investors wanted change and reform and opposed a high public deficit.

Nu also has substantial exposure to Brazil, reporting almost 118 million customers in the country out of 139 million globally at the end of the second quarter.

Separately, Nu’s tokenized stock on Robinhood was trading at $14.72, up 11.1% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. The tokenized instrument trades on a different 24-hour basis than NYSE-listed NU shares. Consequently, the two percentage moves reflect different trading periods and cannot be directly compared.

The timing and breadth of Monday’s move placed NU’s gain within a broader Brazilian-asset rally following the election result, rather than alongside a new company-specific operating announcement.