Ana Clara Pedotti
07/05/2021 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 07/05/2021 7:07 AM
After a heated start to the month, the
demand for dollars will remain high
during the second week of July and analysts agree that this
will be the constant
throughout this last half of the year.
Added to seasonal factors such as the collection of the Christmas bonus and a lower settlement of agriculture are
doubts about the economic program
and the appetite for coverage of Argentines before the mid-term elections.
Last week, the blue dollar ended higher than the previous wheels, at $ 170, and the cash one with liquidation, due to official interventions and a market full of rumors about new possible controls at $ 166.
But, at the same time, the Central Bank once again stepped on the brakes around its daily devaluations and
the official dollar ended at $ 95.6.
Thus, the
gap between the official and free dollars is already higher than 75%
and at some points last week it touched 80% again, a distance that, according to different analysts, the Government cannot validate because it
complicates the strategy. official.
For this reason, they expect
more official intervention
in the coming weeks, both in the bond and futures markets. Although the body chaired by Miguel Pesce accumulated a good cushion of dollars during the first months of the year, the
question is whether it will be enough to avoid an even greater widening of the gap
that puts pressure on a more accelerated devaluation of the official exchange rate , before the primary elections scheduled for September 12.
"One of the challenges facing the BCRA is to be able to
sustain the stability of the exchange rate gap,
something that if reversed could also end up affecting price formation," they warned the LCG consulting firm, adding that an uncontrolled gap it would give an adverse signal to sustain the slowdown in inflation. "With a parallel dollar that widened its gap by up to 80% during the week, the BCRA has already started with the intervention and
, if it does not misuse its wrist, it would have the tools to control it," they
said.
The exchange gap went
from 57% in the last two months to flirting with 80%
last week. If this distance between the two prices is extended even further, it could discourage future liquidations of agriculture, which were the engine of exchange rate stability in the first part of 2021. Nery Persichini, from GMA Capital, explained: "The
magnitude of purchases of Hard currency fell
significantly in June. Despite the fact that agriculture settled US $ 3,358 million in the last month, the BCRA acquired an average of US $ 33 million a day, the lowest amount since February. "
This figure is well behind the US $ 69 million a day in April and the US $ 110 million a day in May, which were two months where the field
had
also
liquidated more than US $ 3,000 million.
"This trend would deepen in the second semester where the supply of agricultural dollars would be lower than the current one and, in turn, the
demand for foreign currency would be encouraged by the previous election,"
the economist anticipated.
For Econviews analysts, keeping the gap close to 75% "
is an absolute priority
" for the Government. "As seen last year, when the exchange rate gap passes a certain threshold,
the economy becomes disorganized and confidence evaporates
. The second half of the year it will be very different and
the Central Bank will have to get rid of some US $ 1,500 million ", they anticipated.
"The Central Bank has three levers to push.
The first would be to devalue a little faster. The second is to stop imports again. The third is to sell reserves
. In our opinion, the latter is the one that the monetary authority will use the most. Surely in At some point, it is also inclined to temporarily stop imports, but it is difficult to dare to devalue faster, "they said.
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