Over the past week, the BCRA has raised rates, issued pesos to buy debt, and had to accelerate the dollar’s rally.
In the midst of tensions on the financial markets and in the face of investors’ doubts about the sustainability of the economic plan agreed with the IMF, the Central Bank arrived in the middle of the year with the necessary machinery.
He had to issue pesos to buy bonds and put a stop to the fall of recent weeks, unable to buy foreign currency on the foreign exchange market to strengthen his reserves and in the midst of the surge in financial dollarsit had to validate a higher devaluation rate, to accompany inflationary projections.
On the four wheels last week, the BCRA let the wholesale dollar run at a rate of 4.5% per montha figure that, if annualized, approaches 70%, The exchange rate that big players have access to for foreign trade ended Thursday at $ 122.92 per unit, a weekly increase of $ 1.13, higher than seen weeks ago.
“The new dollar pace is here to stay.” PPI analysts assured, noting at the same time: “The 5-day moving average has increased to 55.75% from 53.77%, becoming the fastest rate since October 2020”.
However, the dollar continues to lag behind predicted inflation and has not even managed to catch up with the inflation accumulated so far in 2022: while prices have risen by around 30%, the official dollar has advanced slightly less. 20%.
At the same time, the faster rise of the official dollar is not enough to discourage the demand for foreign currency which, far from allowing it to buy dollars for its Reserves as it had committed to the Fund, it forces the monetary authority to sell.
“The Central Bank performed very badly by getting rid of U$ S 375 million, under pressure from large payments for imported energy, lower agro-exporter complex liquidations and demand for non-energy imports driven by a gap once again close to 100%. The negative balance for June already amounts to about 340 million dollars and there are still two weeks to go until the end of the month “, said analysts from Delphos.
Although the Government has been instructed to deny it in recent days, the bleeding of the reserves makes the Municipality analysts tend to think that the next stepthat is, a hardening of the exchange rate.
“The BCRA does not accumulate reserves so far in June,” warned Fernando Marull, of FMyA, who at the same time added: “As we have analyzed, the alternative is more and more stocks. tightening stocks in tourism or services and, as a last resort, imports (inputs) or debt“.
The surge in the financial dollar puts a further layer of doubt on the sustainability of the strategy of the body chaired by Miguel Pesce in the foreign exchange area. Liquidated liquidity has so far jumped by 15% in June, with which in an annual perspective it already exceeds that of the official dollar.
“In the heat of accelerating inflation, the recent issue of pesos and the deterioration of the peso curve (a symptom of distrust in the Treasury’s ability to roll-over), the financial dollar has come out of its long nap,” said Nery. Persichini from GMA Capital. With an exchange gap having returned to a position close to 95%, the incentives for exporters to maintain their liquidation rate on the foreign exchange market decrease significantly.
Ana Chiara Pedotti
Source: Clarin
