The foreign exchange market begins a week of high tension. On the road, blue, after rising 11% last week, jumps from $16 and is topped at $456 by before noon. In the financial market, Stock prices, which have also been on the rise since the start of the round, fell thanks to official intervention in the bond market: cash with liqui operates $448; while the MEP returns to 434 dollars.
In this way the blue surpasses the Qatari dollar, which is at 450 dollars, for the first time since this second quote exists. The ‘Qatar dollar’ was named that last year and sought a higher conversion rate that would discourage demand for the currency from the thousands of Argentine football fans who traveled to watch the World Cup. The provision entered into force on 13 October but its operation, in full theory, began last November.
In the Municipality they are attentive to agricultural liquidations, after a meager result of the “dollar soya 3” program. THE exporters entered in the last week or so US$638 million and their sales are down before the escalation of parallel exchange rates. Although the government had expected a higher clearance rate this week, in the agricultural sector they have been cautious.
A senior industry source told Clarin the market is paralyzed “because of the huge gap in exchange rates” and it is the producers themselves who, faced with growing distrust, they decide not to sell their beans. “$1,250 million of prefinancing has already come in. There’s no way we can keep coming in because foreign banks don’t lend until there are purchases,” he said.
While the liquidations of the “soy dollar” are lower than expected, those of the “agricultural dollar”that is to say also of the export of different products of the regional economies they have entered limbo. “They are demanding that companies enter at fair prices and so far only 20 of them have entered,” industry sources say.
The political noise, coupled with the price spiral in March and April and doubts about the government’s ability to steer the crisis into the primaries, affected the prices.
PPI analysts explained: “The market realized that the nominal value was higher than expected, thus the real interest rate was less attractive and, consequently, it made less sense for the CCL to continue falling in real terms (-8.4% since the start of the debt buy-back programme, for example).”
Last week, the Central Bank has tried to stop the escalation with an increase in the level of interest rates, in a game that the market has described as “late and inadequate“.
“The soybean dollar is the backbone of the Llegar Plan” and if it doesn’t prosper this week, the focus will once again be on the level of net reserves. By our calculations, they closed Friday at $988 million. As an aggravating circumstance, $1.3 billion of interest and principal from the SBA signed in 2018 will have to be paid to the IMF between Friday and Tuesday next week, so the stock could be close to zero,” they added in PPI.
With farm dollars pledged, Massa is working to unblock disbursements of new dollars from international organizations which can compensate for the bleeding.
Martín Polo, of Cohen, explained: “The Government has made it known that it is negotiating an advance of disbursements with the IMF, which seems unlikely to us. The government expects reserves to rise to $3.5 billion over the next two months: $500 million net from the IMF, $600 million from the World Bank and the BIS, $500 million from China for dams of Santa Cruz and a surplus in the foreign exchange market of US $1.6 billion”.
The market is also attentive to the last debt auction of the month, where the Treasury will have to face maturities close to one million.
NS
Source: Clarin
