The blue dollar is about $ 200 in six months: how long will it stay at this level?

Since November 10 last year, the blue dollar has been moving approximately $ 200. 177 days have passed in informal trading in this range and today will be the closing of the week $ 201. How long will it stay at this level?

In this six months inflation accrues 30% increasebut at that time the blue rose is only 0.7%.

In these 177 days, the trajectory of blue has not been linear. On Nov. 10 of last year, it surpassed the $ 200 barrier for the first time. It hit a high of $ 223 on Jan. 27 and it was as low as $ 195 on April 18, just three weeks ago.

The blue dollar is a limited market where that is estimated approximately US $ 5 million is transferred daily. This amount represents 10% of the US $ 50 million transferred by financial dollars and is far from the average US $ 350 million traded on the Single Free Exchange Market (MULC).

As a small market, blue is often volatile. To an extent only a week ago it was sold to $ 212.5, eleven pesos and fifty more today.

At the back of January’s jump in alternative dollars, the certainty that there would be an agreement with the IMF opened up the exchange pax period that was maintained until the beginning of April, when the informal went from $ 195 to $ 210.

In the marketplace they make sure of that the blue still has room to rise and the current $ 200 is a floor. But they didn’t expect a significant jump, instead an increase of about 10% that would bring it back to $ 220, as happened in the first month of this year, when the Monetary Fund agreement seemed to have collapsed.

“Investments will come in through the alternative dollar market, so the blue dollar remains very calm,” said economist Salvador Di Stefano.

“Treasury funds itself in the capital market and, by not using emissions, it leaves the rising dollar without fuel. Here it was added that the long list of tax maturities between May and July puts a temporary ceiling on the blue dollar ”, he pointed out.

The second semester moved on

But this calm will not last forever. “For the second half, you have to tighten your belt, because the dollar can take off to travel at higher altitudes than the current one,” he said. DiStefano warned.

So far in May, the Central Bank slowed the pace of the dollar’s ​​rise wholesaler which applies every day, known in jargon as crawl peg. In the first four rounds of May, the official dollar rose 85 cents, against 95 cents of the previous week’s increase.. This year it rose 12.5%, against inflation of more than 20% in the first four months.

Under the dollar, the currency is on track to lose its race against inflation for the second consecutive year, reviving the chances that the exchange rate gap will grow again, which now stands at 73%.

“Signs of slowdown in crawling-peg they will not be accepted by the operatorsdespite the fact that the Central Bank is increasing foreign currency -even amid restrictions on imports, which have implications- and that despite this the accumulation is coming at a slow pace this second quarter ”, said of economist Gustavo Ber.

In the first four days of May, Central bought $ 430 million, nearly three times more than he pocketed throughout April. Although prospects have improved in the face of increasing reserves, it is still far from over $ 4 billion which was produced in the first quarter of 2021.

In this framework, the MEP dollar trades in $ 206.5 an advance of 4.6% per annum, while cash with liqui is on $ 208a cumulative increase of 2.9%.

“The risk-off along with the climate of local uncertainty, continues to arouse the upward restructuring of financial dollars, beyond the fact that they are still in the range of lateralization despite the fact that $ 200 is referred to as a floor before high nominality ”, says Ber.

AQ