After the shock on Thursday, when the equity dollar rose 20 pesos, the alternative dollars remained calm on the last day of the week. Blue closed at $486one peso less than the previous round and 12 pesos above the price it had at Monday’s open.
In turn, the MEP dollar ended up at $465 and ran out of cash with liqui, the way of dollarization used by companies $493.
In the week that is coming to a close, the government has been playing hardball to stop the rise in financial dollars. He did so out of fear of an April-like currency run, when after March’s 7.7% inflation data, the blue jumped nearly 100 pesos and hit $500.
To avoid the effect of the parallel dollar rise on May inflation, from April 24 to May 17, The Central Bank has spent at least $600 million to keep those currencies in the $460/480 area.
The move to intervene on the market worked in the first days of this week but had a break on Thursday the 18th. The economics team changed strategy that day, which resulted in a 20-peso jump in MEP and a 12-peso jump in cash with cash.
Ignacio Morales, financial analyst at Wise Capital, specifies that on Thursday “the BCRA exited the market and let the financial dollars rise. According to Economy sources, it was to discourage the curlers. It is because with its intervention the BCRA had left the dollars with some instruments (such as AL30) at “subsidized” prices, favoring the purchase of cheap MEPs and the sale of expensive MEPs”.
Despite the version that Economía has let go, what the market is discussing is whether the change in strategy is due to the need to align with the Monetary Fund. With no foreign currency on the horizon and exports sunk by drought, the only alternative that appears on Sergio Massa’s agenda is to convince the IMF to bring forward the 10 billion dollar disbursements in the coming weeks that were to be spread over the whole year .
Despite flowing conversations with the economics team, the IMF still does not open the wallet. And he does not hide his perplexities about the exchange rate strategy that Massa implements and which sends the dollars he pays to importers through the financial channel.
“With the unreserved BCRA, with stock shares, That the government is using reserves to keep the dollar parallel is reckless“, slips the economist Fernando Marull.
Despite the jump in recent days, the rise in alternative dollars average of 40% so far this year, slightly below the expected inflation for the first five months, around 42%.
The LCG consultancy points out that “this delay is supported by the intervention of the monetary authority which is using dollars (which it does not have) to contain the gap due the modest sum of 100 million dollars a day”.
Until now, the government continues to apply a tourniquet on imports to avoid losing more dollars. Even so, the trade deficit so far this year has reached US$1,469 million. “In this sense, the foreign exchange drain appears to have deviated from the commercial channel to the financial one”, LCG points.
Amid the rebound in the soybean dollar’s contribution to $150 million, the central bank bought $101 million in the last session of the week but was unable to stop the reserve bleeding.
Auren Valores’ estimates indicate that negative reserves are already reaching $1.75 billion. And while Minister Massa does not give up the political battle and still shows signs of wanting to be the candidate for acclamation of the government party, the signals that do not arrive are those of the Monetary Fund.
For LCG, one of the alternatives that the government could use is to extend the duration of the 3 soybean dollar. The completion of this program was scheduled for May 31st. But what has so far been cleared of the field, when there are only six wheels left in front, he adds $3,041 millionfar from the $5,000 million Massa expected to raise.
“It is possible that the government appeal to extend the soybean 3 dollar as a way to artificially lengthen a short sheetagainst a backdrop of negative net reserves and an official exchange rate that is once again being used as an anti-inflationary anchor,” LCG points out.
AQ
Source: Clarin
