For the fifth round in a row, the blue dollar rallied again, climbing another $2 to finish at $361, a new nominal record. Half a wheel the ticket price had touched 362 dollars, which becomes the highest historical mark. Demand for dollarization remains steady in the first month of the year: after closing December at $347, blue is already up $14 in just nine rounds, up more than 4% so far this month.
In the equity segment, the MEP dollar was also in demand: it rose 4.5% on the day to close at $342. The same happened with cash with liquidation, which finished up 2% and closed at $343.57.
For weeks, operators have been underlining the intervention of official bodies at the end of the wheel in the bond market to prevent the rise in prices, which this Thursday would not have had the desired effect.
“Financial dollars continue to push daily with interventions, as traders recognize that the “gap” with respect to the free one is very large, and thus a convergence towards the next level of the paper dollar would be foreseeable in the short term” , underlined the economist Gustavo Ber.
With the wholesale dollar at $180.87, exchange rate gap against blue once again exceeded 100%. In this context, the Central Bank broke its series of purchases: for the first time this week it closed with a neutral balance due to its interventions on the official market. The day was characterized by low volumes: just under 200 million dollars were traded, while in the last days of December the average number of operations stood at around 500 million dollars.
However, the body chaired by Miguel Pesce It has bought $80 million so far this year.
A myriad of factors explained the free dollar’s rise in late 2022, which woke up to $357 in the last weeks of December, before deflating to $347 on the last business day of the year. Traders stressed that the reasons for the renewed appetite for the dollar in the second half of last month remain.
On the one hand, they find seasonal factors driving demand: purchases for tourism and some delays in paying Christmas bonuses. Added to these are purchases for coverage: Facing an election year, many savers seek refuge in the dollar to cope with the uncertainty.
There are also factors that explain a lower supply of banknotes in informal markets, including the impact of special dollar for international tourism which offers a higher exchange rate for those visitors to the country who pay with cards and which has taken volume away from the parallel segment.
The blue dollar has started to rise since the entry into force of “Dollar of Qatar”, which closed at $375 this Thursday. Traditionally the price of a ticket on the street sits between the prices of settled cash and the MEP dollar, but in recent weeks blue remains the most expensive “free” price.
The incipient tension in the foreign exchange market is not transferred to the financial front, where Argentine bonds and equities maintain a long recovery. Dollar government bonds close mixed after several days of gains, but country risk managed to break through the 2,000 unit floor.
Source: Clarin
