The Central Bank closed the first operating session of the month with a new record purchase for 245 million dollars, the highest in the last three weeks, and the organization’s reserves increased by $731 million to close 27,871 million dollars. There is hope in the city that as the fourth month of the year progresses and pressure from importers increases, the ability of the organization chaired by Santiago Bausili to obtain dollars for its reserves will be limited.
In this way, reserves rebounded after having recorded several wheels of decline in the last days of March: only in the last two working days of the month, gross reserves had decreased. 1,120 million dollarsdue to the payments that the Government has made both to international credit bodies, such as the CAF or the Paris Club, among others, and to the London courts as a guarantee to be able to challenge the GDP coupon process.
Now, the rebound is due in part to the improvement in the price of gold: the metal, which is part of the reserves, accumulates a 3.4% improvement in its price since the beginning of the month. Furthermore, market sources explain, the increase in reserves corresponds to the accounting changes at the beginning of the month, after the holiday period.
So, the Central extends the positive streak shown in the first quarter of the year. At Adcap they observed: “For the fourth consecutive month, the official exchange rate, combined with the deferral of import payments in installments of 30/60/90 and 120 days, it allowed the Central Bank to purchase almost 3 billion dollars in the month and nearly $11.5 billion since the start of the new administration.
“However, it is worth remembering that this accumulation is possible only while Payments for imports of more than $10,000 million are delayed for the next few months, when the large harvest will allow payments to normalize”, they added.
Going forward, City believe it is Central it will be more difficult for you to continue rebuilding the reserves, even if from April a month of positive seasonality begins for the organization, a consequence of a greater liquidation of agriculture. “Starting in April, we expect Central Bank purchases to begin to decline, as the harvest begins, the effect of the ‘imports in four installments’ will begin to have an impact,” said economist Fernando Marull, of FM y Associates.
This it will “tighten” the Government’s margins to achieve the reserve accumulation target agreed with the Fund in the second quarter of the year. “The objective of improving net reserves for the first quarter has been achieved. After the worsening of inventories in the last days of March, the accumulation for the second quarter should be, at least, $2.5 billion in a period with net payments to the IMF for around 2 billion dollars”, they explained on Aurum Valores.
Meanwhile, the Central validated a $3 wholesale dollar increase, which closed at $861. “Today’s exchange rate correction compensated, like every beginning of the week, for the days of inactivity due to holidays and the weekend,” clarified exchange operator Gustavo Quintana.
In the futures market, prices closed lower. Investors are now betting that the Central Bank will increase the daily devaluation rate to just 3% this month.
In the parallel market, the dollar once again added a downward wheel, although in the City it is believed that there are some incentives for the financial dollar to have a small upward bounce this month: the CCL fell 1.5% and closed just above $1,069. , while the dollar MEP recorded a decline of 2.4% and it settled at around $991.
The blue dollar closed a notch lower, recording its fourth consecutive decline It fell back to a low of $975.
Source: Clarin
