The calm that has reigned on the foreign exchange market for more than two months seems to be spreading in the first days of April and, despite the government having begun to show some signs of trying make some operations more flexible of access to the financial market, the effects of the “super weight” are being felt: parallel dollars stand at around 1,000 dollars and even the MEP dollar has already exceeded that threshold.
In the first two working days of the month, financial prices fell between 1.9% and 2.6% and the exchange rate gap returned to a minimum level which equaled that of the beginning of last month and which has not seen since 2019. This Thursday the MEP rebounded slightly, but closed for the second consecutive round below $1,000, at $996.5. Meanwhile, the CCL lost 1.2% and settled at $1,057.22.
In the Municipality they warned that “the exchange”, precisely the gap between the price of the MEP and that of the CCL, had reached a level record 8% at the end of March. That is, the cost of taking dollars abroad has become higher until it reaches levels that coincide with moments of strong economic or political crisis.
This Thursday this indicator fell to 6.5%. That is, it shows a hidden opportunity: if an investor decides to repatriate $100,000, he automatically “earns” a rate of 6.5% in hard currency. But it also raises some doubts about a new dynamic in the foreign exchange market.
From, Paula Gándara, from Adcapsaid: “One of the yellow lights was seen in the last days of March in the value of the “swap” (the difference between the value of the dollar currency at $1,100 compared to the dollar bill at $1,020) which rose above 7% show local holders selling banknote positions, while many importers need to purchase foreign currency to repay their debts to foreign suppliers.
Martin Polo, by Cohen, explains: “The exchange appears to have been triggered by a combination of factors: 1) importers transfer dollars to local accounts abroad to pay debts; 2) local investors are forced to sell dollars due to the recession, and 3) the SME exporters settling 20% of their exports in MEP dollars instead of wire dollars.
For the economist: “this 7% exchange rate should undergo a significant compression, anchored to seasonality in agricultural sector settlements abroad with the 80/20 regime. For reference, at the end of last year the exchange rate was around 0% and even reaching negative levels, meaning there was a premium for moving dollars abroad.”
The good performance on the exchange rate front was accompanied by a new green round on the debt market: dollar bonds closed with increases of up to 3% and country risk fell another level to close around 1,359 units, a level that had never been reached. seen since November 2020.
“The local variables continue to adjust positively, with a purchase value of the dollar and a level of country risk that seem to leave behind the painful economic model of the last 4 years to seek a new level consistent with the new economic regime that is being attempted .implement,” they said in Delphos.
“Both variables still have ground to cover if we consider that the pre-STEP 2019 values could be representative of a certain “normality”. The dollar in the last 2 months seems to have adjusted more drastically with respect to country risk, perhaps explained by the limitations that still exist in the foreign exchange markets,” they warned.
Source: Clarin
