With access to foreign exchange still hampered, pressure from importers is being felt on financial dollars.
Cash with liquidity, the way companies getdollarized, It has risen 32% so far in January and has already reached $1,282. This brings it closer to the $1,300 area and brings the exchange rate gap with the official dollar to 57%.
The jump in the gap has repercussions on market expectations which predict that, even if the government resists, there will be a new jump in the official price of the dollar in the medium term. So far in January, the the wholesale dollar rose just 1.3% and is trading at $819.
Although the government’s intention is to use the exchange rate as an inflationary anchor and only have it rise by 2% per month, The perception in the city of Buenos Aires is that increasing prices will win the battle and the economic team will have to devalue so as not to lose all the competitiveness acquired with the December leap.
At the same time, this adds pressure to the blue dollar, which in this round increased by 15 pesos and has already reached the level $1,240. With this up 23% so far this month.
The MEP dollar moved at the same level, growing by 23.4% for the month and closing today at $1,227.
Demand from importers was stronger this week. Although if they switch to cash they lose access to the Single Free Trade Market (MULC) for three months, under current conditions the financial dollar seems more attractive than waiting for the market to normalize.
Last week the government took a step forward with a good placement of the BOPREAL, the security with which it seeks to pay off the registered debts it has with importers who could not access the official dollar during the previous administration, when demand reached 1 .2 US dollars. billion. but this week Interest in the title has waned again: in today’s race, 340 million dollars were up for grabs, between the bureaucratic obstacles to access and the market’s doubts about the convenience of the operation.
“With the exchange rate gap widening and uncertainty due to setbacks the government is facing in Congress and the judiciary over the DNU, Importers seem to prefer turning to the CCL rather than betting on the BOPREAL“said a market specialist.
Added to the increase in demand from importers is that of investors who prefer to switch to hard currency in a context of high inflation and negative real rates.
“Furtherdollarization, encouraged by very negative real rates and the impending decline in money demand, continues to push financial dollars and thus widen the gap beyond 50%. a level that could start to raise expectations of a new devaluation before the harvestprecisely to facilitate the liquidation after the delay that would have accumulated by now”, explains the economist Gustavo Ber.
For now, the Central Bank continues to accumulate reserves. In this wheel he bought others 172 million dollars and takes US$2,114 million in the thirteen wheels passed in January.
With this the reserves are put to 24.3 billion dollars. The chances of central purchases being sustained will depend on what happens with demand from importers, which for now is limited by the obstacles that still exist. But it is expected that in the last week of the month dollars will begin to accumulate in the MULC, which could lead to the Central Bank having to sell foreign currency.
Source: Clarin
