Last week, the Central Bank’s gross reserves pierced the US $ 27,000 millionsomething that did not happen since September. Market analysts look at the sales of dollars that the monetary authority has been carrying out, which only in the last six wheels detached from US $ 1.2 billion.
In the midst of turbulence that made it of March Financial dollars will increase 5%, Against an official dollar update of 1% and an estimated inflation for the month by 2.5%, the difficulties of the central to make dollars light the alarms.
And in the last hours another worrying fact was added: net reserves, which should be available for the central to intervene in the market, They are already negative for US $ 8,500 millionaccording to data from the LCG consultant.
The gross reserves are composed of the SWAP of coins with China, the Gold, the dollars of the own, the lace of the deposits in dollars, the loans of the International Payment Bank guarantee of the dollar deposits administered by Sedesa and the special rights of rotation (DEGS) of the IMF. To get to net reserves, you have to clean the lace, the swap and loans from this account.
Unlike the amount of gross reserves, which is announced every day by the central, There is no official information about net reserves, So consultants use different methodologies to estimate them.
At the beginning of this government, Net reserves were negative at US $ 10,500 million. From that floor they were reduced to the US $ 4.5 billion, – always negative – a year ago. And from there they began to climb again to the -us $ 8.5 billion today.
This change in trend is related to the difficulties of the central to conserve the dollars that it was acquiring in the market. Although since Javier Milei assumed the monetary authority He managed to buy almost US $ 25,000 millionmost of that amount was in payment of debts and interventions to have the official dollar stepped on and hold it as exchange anchor to lower inflation.
From GMA Capital they point out that “Central’s Purchases The pillar of the increase in gross reserves came to be“.
“Faced with the recent level of sales, it is not surprising that the stock will mark a strong setback to US $ 26,783 million, minimum since September 2024. Meanwhile, net reserves approximate US $ 8,000 million negatively. In the light of a little encouraging external scenario, the exchange rate is again in the center of the debate“, they add.” In this situation, nervousness can persist, mainly if the BCRA selling streak remains. ”
The problem of reservations is at the Center for the Government’s negotiation with the Monetary Fund. As published Clarionthe fund does not want the government to spend the disbursements that the new agreement will bring to maintain the exchange rate. And open the door so that the scheme of the Crawling Peg of 1% monthly is changed to a exchange flotation, to which the government resists for fear that this interrupts the decrease in inflation.
“The agreement with the IMF must put the bun, but there is no intersection between the government wants and what the IMF wants. The government wants to injject dollars to the BCRA with the current scheme. They are remumding. The IMF says ‘accumulate reservations’. In the middle, a speech that says there are no pesos. Argentina cannot float with this balance of the Central Bank, “said economist Marina Dal Poggetto in a radial interview in FM Milenium.
For the economist Juan Carlos de Pablo you have to go to the flotation. “One day we will leave the stocks and we will find that we have a lot of white dollars and few pesos. What is the fear of the exchange run? I am one of those who think that this government has to let the exchange rate floatbecause the center of economic policy is fiscal balance, “he said in a radio interview with you.” If you intend to intervene in the exchange market you need many reserves. If you are thinking that you end up floating you do not need reservations“.