As part of measures put in place by Sergio Massa’s economic team to stop the dollar’s soaring in the last two weeks, the government adjusted the exchange rate again. The National Securities Commission (CNV) presented this Monday two new changes in the functioning of the exchanges that are bought on the stock exchange: cash with settlement, or cable, and the dollar MEP or stock market.
It was a move expected by the financial market, after the series of strategies that Minister Sergio Massa has called upon since last Tuesday the blue dollar flirted with the 500 dollars. From the Treasury Palace the press release detailing the new requirements was distributed for both operations, even if the measurements will be made official in the Official Journal from this Tuesday.
Specifically, what the NVC did is define the limits of the operation both for the purchase and for the sale of securities which determine the call MEP Dollar as a Settled Settled Dollar. At the same time, sets new rules for operations.
On the one hand, it prevents customers who have took debt in pesos through guarantees or passages (two very short-term instruments on the market) can sell their securities against dollars, i.e. buy MEP or cash with settlement.
This is to prevent the demand for MEP or CCL from increasing. Given that the interest rate of sureties or repurchase agreements remains below the official rate since the BCRA, many investors have borrowed pesos to create MEPs or CCLs.
The CNV, on the other hand, prevents brokerage firms, or ALyCs, from operating both “by screen” quotes, but rather they must carry out this type of operation in the so-called Senebi (Bilateral Trading Segment) an alternative wheel, which arises from the purchase and sale of bonds and where large companies participate who as buyers or sellers agree on a price for the transaction, different from that set by the market.
“As part of the Necessity and Urgency Decree 164/2023, said limits focus on the number of marketable securities sold versus the number of marketable securities purchased -with settlement in foreign currency and in local or foreign jurisdiction-, carried out in the segment of the competition of the offers, with price-time priority from the sub-accounts reached by the provisions of article 6 of Chapter V of Title VI, and which have the character of qualified investors “, specified the official communication.
Likewise, it is envisaged that both the Settlement and Clearing Agents (ALYC) and the Trading Agents cannot proceed or settle sales transactions of negotiable securities with settlement in foreign currency -in local and foreign jurisdictions- corresponding to ordering customers (provided they maintain the assumption of positions in sureties and/or repurchase agreements, regardless of the settlement currency).
The regulation is dated last Friday and as explained by the agency, it was designed in agreement with market agents. These same sources have detailed what the idea is “marking the end of the use of cards and guarantees”. In essence, this implies that those who operate in these markets “must place the money” and not access it through other securities, such as sureties.
“Basically it is to avoid the speculation processes that generate races and allow those who really need financial dollars to operate freely”, assured sources familiar with these types of measures. In this way, the Government is trying to limit a “new vicious circle” that has emerged in recent weeks: the high rates have triggered the request for sureties and passes and the pesos resulting from that operation have been exchanged for securities on the market to be dollarised.
For Gabriel Caamaño Gómez, economist at Consultora Ledesma, the measure aims to limit the purchase of dollars and avoid the arbitrage of parallel rates and exchange rates. Funding in MEP and CCL is difficult which slows down the demand for parallels. However, he warned that he can still referee against the blue. “Maybe this means more demand in the blue, We have to see where the blow comes from.”
The economist warned that the second measure is not new: “This has already happened in 2021; when Guzmán intervened in parallel, these regulations were in force. There, 3,500 million dollars were sold by intervening in MEP and CCL. What they are looking for it’s to get them out cheaper to intervene in MEP and CCL to keep the price underfoot. They’ve already done that,” he said.
NS
Source: Clarin
