The exchange rate tension of the week left a blue dollar with a rise of 3.2% which was higher than the 2.7% that a depositor receives fixed term in one month.
The reasons for a blue dollar of $1,420, after having touched $1,430 on July 2, can be found in the market operators’ reading of the debt swap between the Central Bank and the Treasury that the Government announced. to “clean up” the Central Bank’s balance sheet,or in the small amount of foreign currency that the organization purchased throughout June.
For operators, a Central Bank that ends June selling foreign currency, and that this month must to disburse US$ 3.4 billion to meet the payment of the Treasury debt (including AL30 and GD30 coupons), will be in a weaker position and without dissipating the exchange rate risk.
This reasoning includes the delay in the settlement of the export of the coarse harvest in the understanding that producers and exporters are waiting for an improvement in their income, whether from the exchange rate or the tax side.
For some economists, The official wholesale exchange rate is around 25% behind and they are betting that the Government will end up devaluing at some point in the second half of the year.
The Government’s responses are categorical: The official exchange rate will continue to adjust at a rate of 2% per month and the continuity of the “blend” dollar is a fact.
The Government assures that both the president Javier Miley as the minister Luis Caputo and the head of the Central Bank, Santiago BausiliThey are firmly convinced that leaving the 2% monthly “crawling peg” would only increase the nominal exchange rate, but not the real one, since the inflationary jump would be immediate.
A pertinent question, then, is where do they plan to get dollars to calm the mood in terms of exchange rates and the official response is more in favor of pesos.
For the Government, the increase in demand for pesos has already begun, as has, although weakly, the fixed-term rate.
At the Central Bank they believe in the power of the fiscal surplus and the cut in the issuance of pesos that will involve the exchange of the Central Bank’s debt for Treasury bills.
“The pesos will be scarce” they say at the Central Bank to justify the maintenance of the official dollar at a strict rate, rising to 2% monthly and ruling out a shock as a mechanism for lifting the exchange rate restriction.
Following this logic, from now on, we should closely monitor the evolution of the exchange rate gap, that is, the distance between the wholesale dollar and the free cash settlement dollar.
As of Friday, that gap was 52%, with a wholesaler at $917 and a CCL at $1,395. That level of gap makes it difficult to eliminate the expectation that the lifting of the restrictions would be accompanied by a jump in the exchange rate.
An interesting figure was raised by the financial analyst Leandro Zicarelli in the radio program of the journalist Jairo Straccia when he said that, to get out of the trap, one must go through the gap that is “he patovica from a bowling alley“If it is small, the jump would be small and if it is large, the exchange rate jump could be large.
Part of the market expectation is that the Government will obtain the US$8 billion in additional funds from the International Monetary Fund that Minister Luis Caputo mentioned. But there is no indication that this will be short-term.
The government says it is not in a hurry to negotiate a new agreement, and the market is convinced that the IMF will not extend the loan unless it is to pay the organization.
Regarding the suggestions for changes to the exchange rate policy included in the report by the IMF staff, the Ministry of Economy understands that this is a technical recommendation that the bureaucracy of the organization must make as a formal matter to keep its board informed.
Under this umbrella, both the Treasury and the Central Bank assign a long life to the current exchange scheme while waiting for the absence of monetary emission for fiscal reasons and the rise in interest rates will be powerful enough to calm the waters in the coming weeks.
Recent economic history shows that Argentina can live with exchange controls and a wide gap between dollars for a long time.
But that is also one of the reasons for the economic stagnation that has lasted for more than 10 years.