With blue at $ 300, the demand for hedging in the futures market is skyrocketing

The strong uncertainty that exists in the financial market has aroused the request for coverage of investors and companies trying to avoid the effects of a possible devaluation.

With the blue dollar at $ 300 and the cash settlement close to $ 307the question of future dollar shot again on Tuesday. When the wheel was closed, some had operated in the Rofex $ 604 millionalmost 25% of what was operated the day before. In any case, the contracts are agreed and settled in pesos, taking the official wholesale dollar as a reference. There are no dollar bills at stake, neither from the BCRA nor from the counterparties. If someone agreed to sell dollars at $ 130 and the wholesale dollar closed at $ 133, the one who failed in his bet pays the difference of 3 pesos. These settlements are made at the end of each wheel.

Therefore, the open interest in the futures market, i.e. the number of contracts that have been initiated in both markets in which this operation is carried out, both the Matba Rofex and the MAE, exceeds 7,705 million US dollars. If you compare that with what happened twelve months ago, this represents an increase in coverage demand of 193%.

be wary

Andrés Reschini, of F2 Finanzas, explained: “Since February we have noticed that this year has started with a greater demand for hedging of exchange rates, especially as the deadline to agree with the IMF approached. Then in April / May we It is accentuated with the BCRA’s difficulties in accumulating reserves during the heavy harvest season and worsened with the sell-off of sovereign debt in early June. “

Since then, open interest has risen by more than 70%. “The resignation of Martín Guzmán and the first steps of Batakis (added to the accumulation of previous problems) led AI to exceed $ 7.7 billion. The market sees the exchange rate delay becoming increasingly fragile in this scenario, “said Reschini.

If the rates are respected, investors see high odds of a jump in the official exchange rate in December of this year, in February and June next year, where it rises above 90%. In the short-term contracts, which are the most negotiated, it is there that we see the intervention of the Central Bank, which goes out to sell to put a ceiling on expectations.

“The wider the gap with the officer, the greater the expectation of devaluation. The Central Bank only sells one-month and two-month futures contracts, so rates above 85% are a sign of what the short term would be like.” . if the Central does not intervene “, said Emiliano Anselmi, of the PPI.

In May of this year, the last official data published, the body chaired by Miguel Pesce had started the second quarter of the year with a sold position of 2,088 million dollars. In the market it is estimated that last month it would have raised its interventions to 2,979 million dollars and that so far this month it would have sold more than 5,000 million dollars.

The monetary authority has a double limit on intervention in these markets. On the one hand, a legal limit of $ 5,000 million in the ROFEX market and another $ 4,000 million in the MAE. On the other hand, a ceiling agreed with the IMF which is calculated quarterly.

Borders

For the period from July to September of this year, the total limit is US $ 9 trillion. So the power plant would have already used more than half of its firepower in this market for this quarter just to contain expectations.

For economist Javier Marcus, the Central will be able to adjust this ceiling if necessary. “The government has already shown that a devaluation is the least wanted scenario, so it will do everything it can not to. In turn, the sale of dollar futures serves to decompress demand in the spot market. ”