The short position of the Central Bank (BCRA) in the local dollar futures markets fell by more than half in the last three monthsonce the market began to be convinced that the Government was heading to close an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), something that finally materialized last Friday.
The entity led by Miguel Pesce had sold contracts for a sum equivalent to US$5.1 billion until the end of last November. in an attempt to manage the general expectations of the market regarding a possible jump in the exchange rate following the parliamentary elections.
At the end of January, that position had already decreased to US$3.79 billion and a month later it had shrunk to US$2.7 billion, according to data known to date. According to the latest estimates, that exposure would have fallen below $2 billion this month.
It is a type of bet that, moreover, was very profitable in the last three months for the BCRA, as the fear of a possible disorderly devaluation progressively subsided, which allowed it to pocket a profit of almost $30,000 million at the end of 2021 and of more than $24,500 million only in the first two months of the current yeargiven the amount of private bets that had been played at a “jump” of the dollar.
The sale of future dollar contracts is one of the mechanisms that the Central has to intervene in the market and try to manage exchange expectations. It is an operation that consists of an agreement between a seller (a role that in recent years has been fulfilled mostly by the monetary entity) and a buyer to assign a future value to the currency in the official market that is set at the final round of each month. and it is settled in pesos in relation to the difference between the agreed values and the closing of the reference exchange rate (Communication “A” 3500) published by the BCRA.
Even, a considered “rarity” in the recently approved agreement: the IMF increased the maximum limit of exposure that the BCRA can take in the futures market to the equivalent of US $ 9,000 million to ward off devaluation fears, 75% above the amounts that was allowed, although 45% below the maximum of US$16,000 million that reached that position at the end of Cristina Kirchner’s second term, which generated a million dollar bill of $52,482 million to the monetary entity -despite having been renegotiated- a year later, following the disarming of the stocks and the sincerity of the exchange rate.
The lower tension in the foreign exchange market can be seen by the downward trend shown in recent months by the prices of the so-called free dollars.category in which financials are grouped (which are set through operations with bonds or shares) and the parallel or blue, despite the fact that the BCRA has not yet managed to rebalance the cash market to stop the loss of its own reserves despite having imposed new limits on import demand at the beginning of the month that are generating shortages in the supply of some products or inconveniences in the production of others.
Some of that was verified even in today’s round when he had to contribute another US$35 million to the market (13.5% of the US$257.6 million traded in cash on the day) only to be able to supply the purchase orders that had passed all the official filters and were not served with the foreign currency provided by the private bidders (exporters, basically).
The new sale, the seventh following the last nine rounds, reduced to regarding US$350 million a favorable balance due to interventions in the month, that had reached US$560 million before that string, which confirms a very narrow market, especially when compared to the US$1,476 million that had been raised by repurchases in March of last year.
In other words, the Central is on its way to closing the month capturing from the market for its meager reserves only 22% of what it obtained a year before, despite the fact that the best harvest prices allowed the cereal sector to contribute to the market already more than US$2,800 million (when one wheel remains to close the month) once morest the US$2,773.5 million invested in the same month of 2021.
