With more and more restrictions on the exchange market, all roads seem to lead to Dolar blue for those looking to exchange their pesos for the US currency. In the last week, the Central Bank (BCRA) not only tightened access to the official marketa strategy that had already been implemented for three years, but also doubled the bets and It made it impossible for a large part of Argentines to buy MEP dollars, cash with liquidation (CCL) and even cedars.
In this context, today Dolar blue resumes the uptrend and interrupts the “foreign exchange summer” that the market had been going through for a month and a half. This morning, the small trees and caves of Florida Street offer US bills at $287, $8 more than the previous day (+2.8%). This is the highest value since the beginning of September.
“The Government continues with the same exchange and monetary policy, the market discounts inflation levels of three digits to one year, and 90% per year for the coming years. This ends with a rise in alternative dollars higher than inflation, no matter how hard the government tries to carry out a policy of intervention in the market, with a harder trap that, before putting it into practice, is doomed to failure”, mentioned the financial analyst Salvador di Stefano.
The first surprise came last Thursday, when the monetary authority established a “super-stock” on all those who have a subsidized rate for electricity, gas and water services. Although in the first two cases there is a form to stop receiving state aidIn the case of water, the subsidy is received automatically and there is currently no option to opt out. “AySA will have to put the unsubscribe button or generate the mechanisms to desist”, they admitted from the BCRA. The measure prohibits the purchase of any type of dollar to the entire Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA).
The second counteroffensive was known yesterday. To “calm down” the financial dollars, which in the last rounds jumped more than $20, among other factors due to a greater demand from agro-exporters, the Central Bank limited that the companies that operated the “soy dollar” buy MEP dollars, cash with liquidation and cedars that lead to a final operation in dollars.
Notably financial exchange rates had become the two legal alternatives for Argentines to dollarize despite the exchange rate. This is how, before the new restrictions to operate them, today they register some setbacks.
The MEP dollar or “Bolsa”, tools that allow you to make dollars by buying and selling bonds, appears this morning on screens $290,51. This is a daily drop of $5 (-1.7%). Cash with liquidation (CCL) or “Cable”, used to transfer the dollars to a bank account outside of Argentina, it fell $3, to $300 (-1.1%).
“We understand that these measures by the Central Bank are an isolated attempt to stop the purchase of financial dollars by producers.. However, these twists and turns can be counterproductive, as they add noise to the soybean complex in the short term, they can slow down the very good performance of the ‘soybean dollar’ and thus make it difficult to achieve the goal of net reserves with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the end of the month. It will be necessary to see what is the final impact of this measure ‘against the hand’ of the incentives offered to the soybean complex at the beginning of this month”, they pointed out from Delphos Investment.
The official wholesale exchange rate, the reference price in foreign trade, is offered to $144,63. They are 26 cents more than the previous session (+0.2%), in the BCRA’s attempts to keep up with inflation. By looking at the gap exchange, against the blue is 97%; when comparing with the CCL, it reaches 107%.
The international climate doesn’t help either. Today the global markets are closely following the decision to be made by the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) this Wednesday, since a new rise in interest rates is expected. In August, the US inflation data was higher than what analysts expected, which could indicate that the entity will continue with a tougher monetary policy.
“Although this adjustment would be in line with investors’ expectations, an adjustment above it could negatively impact to a market that remains very sensitive to negative news”, warned from Cohen Investment. Faced with these movements, emerging countries -such as Argentina- are hit hard.
In line with the numbers in red that are observed in the main stock exchangestoday the S&P Merval operates at 147,408 units, 1.9% less than yesterday. The falls of Pampa Energía (-3.7%), Telecom Argentina (-3.5%) and Transportadora de Gas del Sur (-3.1%) stand out.
On Wall Street, Argentine stocks (ADR) operate in negative territory. Especially the papers of Transportadora de Gas del Sur (-3.6%), Tenaris (-3.3%), Pampa Energía (-3.2%), Ternium (-2.8%) and Banco Supervielle ( -2.6%).
While, the country risk remains stable at 2,386 basis points (+0.1%). The bonds of the last debt swap present mixed variations: while at the local level they rise up to 0.8% (Bonar 2038), at the local level they sink 2% (Bonar 2035).