In the end, the week was developed as it had been anticipated with the elections in the province of Buenos Aires. The electoral difference data contrasted with the story that was tried to impose in the previous 15 days, and the market reacted similarly to what happened on August 12, 2019, when it also lied to the percentages and the exchange rate was shot. This time it was a more moderate déjà vu: there are not so many pesos in the hands of the people, but in the banks, added to the corruption scandal in the government that promised to fight the corrupt and ended up involved in maneuvers that affect the most vulnerable sectors – disabled, retired, pensioners and cancer patients – who would have taken off for its sale.
The weekly balance showed an expense of US $ 1,055 million in 2030 bonds from the FGS, a net loss of US $ 211 million in BCRA reserves and about US $ 200 million of the treasure. Thus, the treasure has less than US $ 900 million, although at the end of the month it must pay maturities for US $ 1,165 million. That will force him to buy about US $ 300 million in the single and free market (MULC), which will inevitably press the official upward dollar. With reservations at $ 40,309 million, it is likely that at the end of next week the BCRA will drill US $ 40,000 million due to interventions to contain the exchange rate below $ 1,471. Without that intervention, the entity itself acknowledged that $ 211 million were already lost in the last week.
In exchange terms, we went from an official dollar to $ 1,380 at Banco Nación on Monday to $ 1,465 on Friday. All dollar types rose in the same proportion, approaching the roof of the band agreed with the IMF, never approved by Congress. This guarantees that the upward pressure will continue in the week of September 15: to overcome the $ 1,471 seems imminent, which will force the BCRA to continue intervening and losing reservations, while those who still trust the speech of Minister Caputo on the “cheap” of the exchange rate persist.
For the next two weeks, the Ministry of Economy seeks a trip to the United States to meet with the IMF and negotiate the expansion of exchange bands, given that the BCRA does not have enough physical tickets to sustain prolonged intervention. The panorama could be aggravated if China demands the return of the swap equivalent to US $ 18,000 million, an active that appears in the records but is not available in its entirety. That extreme scenario is not ruled out, since the president never traveled to Beijing to sign the bilateral agreement with Xi Jinping, as expected for more than a year.
Fabián Medina. Economic and Tax Analyst
