With a five peso jump on the day, the blue dollar caught up $381, the highest nominal price reached so far. With an exchange rate differential of 107%, the informal sector puts pressure on inflation in January and February, which is around 6%.
In the three weeks spent in January, The blue dollar is already up 10%: With this, it takes the lead in the escalation of dollars that are used in the Argentine market. While the officer, who arrives at $184.5 in the wholesale segment it advanced at a rate of 4.35%, MEP rose by 7.9% and cash with liquid by 4.6%.
One week from the end of January, this rise in blue raises the low for prices that should end the first month of 2023 at around 6%, a level that would also be the basis for inflation for February.
With these perspectives the possibilities are reduced that minister Sergio Massa’s prediction that the consumer price index will slow down and restart from 3% in April has come true.
What has slowed down in recent weeks has been the rate of appreciation of the official dollar. Although the Central Bank tried a few months ago to bring the exchange rate to the same speed as prices, the creeping peg -today in 5.3% monthly— slowed as officials saw inflation pick up.
But with such a restrictive exchange rate it is no longer enough to stop the official dollar to anchor inflation: the production and commercial chain highlights prices with an eye on the price of alternative dollars, because they don’t know what dollar they will have to substitute their shares for.
With current restrictions, in many cases, importers are forced to use their own dollars to import, then charge their products with the replacement cost those bills will have.
With today’s jump, the Azzurri remained two pesos under the Qatari dollar, than with your quote $383 It is the highest on the market. The government downplayed the blue’s rise, arguing it rose for holiday-related seasonal reasons: Being cheaper than the Qatari dollar, overseas travelers would rather take tickets than pay by card.
In the official dispatches they claim that the high demand from tourists occurs in the first half of January, so they expected an easing in the second. But they were also betting that Sergio Massa’s debt buyback plan would help put a cap on financial dollars and, by extension, this would push back the blue.
Nor has this premise been met: since the debt buyback was launched six days ago through $1 billion, financial dollars rose 2.5%. Country risk, the indicator that measures the excessive cost of Argentine debt, and which was Massa’s primary objective, recorded just a drop of 56 basis points for the week, which brings it up to 1825 basis points.
Until now, the Central Bank allocated for the repurchase of bonds close to 350 million dollars, a third of what was expected. Bonds targeted by Massa are up around 0.5% this session. The good news of the day for Miguel Pesce’s team is that the series of sales that led him to part with 200 million dollars in recent days has ended: today he managed to buy 2 million dollars.
Meanwhile, market sentiment continues to deteriorate as the investigation by the National Securities Commission proceeds, which on Monday began sending its first inquiries to brokerage firms to analyze whether there were any leaks that explained the sharp increase in volume. of bonds traded before the announcement of the debt repurchase.
This Tuesday, cash with liquids closed $360down 0.9% on the day, while the MEP was up 0.5%, a $353.85.
“The dollars remain firm despite the government interventions that try to keep them contained. The closing prices are affected by last-minute operations in which we try to mark prices lower than those operated for most of the day”, warns from Aurum Securities.
“The upward pressure on liquidity continues to be driven by the oversupply of pesos which prevails in the economy”, points out from Aurum.
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Source: Clarin
