With the announcement of the soybean dollar and on the first day of operation of the local market after the attack on Vice President Cristina Kirchner, the blue dollar plunged fifteen pesos and closed at $ 270, the lowest level since 11 July.

Despite the announcements, the soybean dollar did not start trading this Monday: the combination of the party in the United States for Labor Day, plus the difficulties of banks in adapting their systems with a few hours’ notice, has complicated the start of the operation

With this collapse, the informal dollar is now 80 pesos below the record of 350 dollars reached on July 22, during the interregnum of former minister Silvina Batakis.

Yesterday’s announcement by Minister Sergio Massa to create a new soybean dollar for 25 days, which will trade at 200 pesos until September 30, marked the beginning of a new currency summer.

This is also noticeable in financial dollars: the MEP, which is listed on the Buenos Aires stock exchange, fell by 2.7% to $ 273 and cash with liquidity or CCLs that companies use to withdraw foreign currency from the country yielded 2.5%. $ 281.

In this way, the blue dollar is today the cheapest of the alternative dollars and is just 6% above the paper dollar, today at $ 254.

The informal sector was already in decline and this trend deepened on Monday, with the prospect that in the coming days there will be strong liquidations of agrodollars, which will help to decompress the exchange gap.

To this expectation is added the version that in the coming days the Central Bank will apply a new interest rate hikewhich increases the attractiveness of being in pesos.

In this climate, the Central Bank accelerated the devaluation and the official exchange rate had the highest daily rise in nearly 2 years: it went up by $ 1.17, to $ 140.20.

Central sales

On the first day of the new soybean dollar operation, no transactions were closed, as the banks are just finishing the rollout of the system. And furthermore, the US vacation played against the pledge of exporters to inject dollars to fulfill the government’s promise to have con US $ 1 billion in just three days.

This led to the Central Bank breaking the series of purchases it held for sixteen rounds and having to go out and sell again, this time. $ 9 million.

“The monetary authority has registered the first negative balance of the month in a wheel where demand was piling up to meet overseas obligations, without recording sales of the soybean complex at the date “indicated the operator Gustavo Quintana.

“This is not immediate, the movement of the soybean dollar will be important, many people have made the decision to sell, but the record of this will not be seen for another seven days, “said economist Salvador Di Stéfano.

Market sources have pointed out that the interruption of the Central sales series “does not indicate anything because today was an atypical day. Tomorrow (Tuesday) it really starts”.

AQ