The Central Bank cannot get its footing: for the first time in the Milei era the organization had to sell dollars in two consecutive rounds. The organization chaired by Santiago Bausili sold another US$9 million this Monday and the yellow lights remain on in the exchange market. On the other hand, bonds and stocks rose: the Merval index measured in dollars rebounded 4.3% and the country risk fell almost 100 points and returned to 1,488 units.
Although the Central Bank fails to recover its dollar purchasing position in the official market, at the start of the week, after the sharp collapse that Argentine assets had in the previous week, financial dollars slightly eased their rise and fell between 0.8% in the case of the MEP dollar, and 0.5% in the case of cash with settlement, to end at $1,272 and $1,306, respectively. On the street, the blue dollar advanced another $15 and ended at $1,280 for sale, an increase of $55 since the month began
In the debt segment, dollar bonds recovered ground and ended with increases of . This gives the Government some margin after one of the worst weeks on the financial front since its inauguration last December. “The market today was more lively, with greater appetite for sovereign debt in foreign currency that had been hit hard,” said Andrés Reschini, of F2 Soluciones Financieras. “It will assign more chances that the Bases Law can come out, although the bonds are far from recovering the value they had before they began to fall,” he added.
Investors are not only closely following the discussion over the Bases Law but also a new bond tender in the peso debt market and the definitions on financing with the IMF and China. All this in a context in which Central Bank purchases are clearly falling. Salvador Viltelli, of Romano Group, stated: “There was not necessarily a specific driver, but Caputo’s statements about the country’s tax, the possibilities that the basic law and fiscal package will finally advance, may have helped,” he added.
“Without a doubt, the last two weeks were the worst that the Milei government had, so it will be important to analyze how the cabinet’s reaction will be in a more adverse financial context,” said Martín Polo, from Cohen, who also noted: ” Meanwhile, the fundamentals “They continued to improve with good results from the public accounts – in May they would have maintained the surplus -, inflation subsiding and activity that, although it does not rebound, seems to have found a floor.”
This Monday, the organization chaired by Santiago Bausuli shed US$9 million after its interventions in the exchange market, so in the first six rounds of June it barely accumulated US$90 million. This is a daily average of US$ 15 million, well below the US$ 140 million per day that it bought during March and April.
“With a pace of BCRA purchases that has not yet been lifted as a result of the liquidations, operators continue to closely monitor its dynamics given that it is important to advance with greater intensity at this stage in the accumulation of reserves, as a prelude to the lower currency supply in the second semester,” said economist Gustavo Ber.
In the stock market, almost all Argentine companies listed on Wall Street rebounded strongly, with increases that reached almost 7% in the case of Transportadora de Gas del Sur. This supported the Merval index, which ended with a rise of 3.5%, an improvement that is not enough to erase the 4.5% drop it has accumulated since the beginning of the month.
