The blue dollar continued its bullish rally and rose another $35 on Tuesday to close at $1,365 pesos for sale in the caves of the city of Buenos Aires and $1,515 in Rosario.
With this new jump, the exchange rate gap is once again above 50%, something that has not happened since the end of January.
In June, the blue appreciated $140 pesos (11.43%) against an expected inflation of around 6% for the entire month and an interest rate that remains negative even in real terms.
Financial dollars accompanied the rise. Especially the MEP, which advanced another ten pesos to be above $1,300 again. The price that is marketed in the Electronic Payments Market closed on Tuesday at $1,304.70. Cash settlement remained stable at the $1,312 level. THE CCL has also appreciated 5.2% so far in June.
The Central Bank bought US$43 million in a round in which US$302.4 million were negotiated. In June it accumulated purchases for just US$115 million.
With three rounds left before the end of the month, the monetary authority accumulates less than 5% of the foreign currency it purchased in May (US$2,522 million). The doubt in the sustainability of the crawling peg at 2% monthly and a greater exchange rate delay, causes exporters to keep their stock and not liquidate foreign currency.
The gross reserves of the Central Bank increased by US$ 76 million and ended at a level of US$ 29,781 million.
The Ministry of Economy will return to place debt in pesos this Wednesday with the objective of, at least, refinancing the nearly $6 billion that matures in the coming days. To do this, it will offer investors five titles. On the table there will be four Lecap, the fixed rate bills with which the Ministry of Finance promised to reestablish a scheme of positive returns against inflation. But the main novelty is the return to the menu of a linked dollar bond: Luis Caputo decided to propose it again in days of expansion of the exchange gap and despite the express rejection of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The placement will be the second and last of June. In the previous tender, which occurred after days of strong tension in the financial markets, the economic team decided to pause the debt migration process from the Central Bank to the Treasury and awarded what was necessary to renew the mid-month maturities. This handrail was part of the strategy to dismantle the BCRA’s paid liabilities, which the government decided to accelerate in May, in exchange for a growth in the treasury’s short-term net debt.
The economist and former official of the national government of Together for Change Carlos Melconian pointed out that “the little financial program ended, it already gave everything it had to give” and indicated that this transition should not be confused with an economic program.
The leading stock index S&P Merval of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange rose 0.7% to 1,570,620 units at the close, after losing 1.4% on Monday due to portfolio adjustments following local holidays. The ADRs and shares of Argentine companies that are traded in dollars on Wall Street had a mixed close. “The Merval of Argentina remains very consolidated, just above 1,500,000 points, without taking a clear direction in the short term. However, in the medium term there is an upward trend in the Merval and it could continue to rise, since, so far, it has not retreated too much downwards,” said Alexander Londoño, analyst at ActivTrades.
Sovereign bonds operated with selectivity and a neutral average, while the country risk measured by the JP Morgan bank ended without variations for Argentina, at 1,440 basis points.
