Annabella quiroga
07/22/2021 18:00
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 07/22/2021 18:02
The blue dollar advanced one more peso and reached
$ 184
this Thursday.
With this, it maintains the upward trend and consolidates the gap at 91%, the highest level reached so far in 2021.
The wholesale dollar closed at
$ 96.41
, while the savings dollar reached
$ 168
and the dollar counted with liquid and the MEP ended at
$ 167
and
$ 166.5,
respectively.
The rise of the blue dollar in the last 30 days made it
the most profitable option
for those seeking profitability with conservative investments.
Both the informal and financial dollars took several bodies ahead of placements in pesos and the official dollar, which is the one that moves more slowly.
Between June 22 and today the blue dollar rose 19 pesos,
an advance of 11.5%.
This result multiplies by four the yield of the traditional fixed term, which averages
3% per month.
In the case of cash with liqui, the gain in 30 days was only 5 pesos, an increase of
3.2
%. Something similar happens with the MEP dollar that rose 8 pesos, an advance of
5%.
Negative rates
Except for the official dollar, which
has been moving at 1% per month
, all other dollars offer better returns than the peso.
As detailed by the GMA consulting firm, in June, with inflation of 3.2%, the fixed terms yielded 0.3% below the price level.
Placements in pesos have
been losing for 11 months in a row against inflation
.
GMA specifies that in that period they accumulated an average annualized return of -10%, with an erosion of purchasing power of 9% from end to end.
With these negative rates, placements in pesos are defenseless against the dollar.
"The positive real rate is a first defense barrier to prevent the demand for pesos from suffering. It gives greater immunity to the local currency because it makes the decision to migrate to goods (inflation) or foreign currency more expensive for banknote holders. (exchange rate gap and devaluation expectations) ", says GMA.
In this way, the Central Bank insists on keeping the
market reference rate fixed at 38%
to stimulate consumption and activity and promote reactivation.
"The real interest rate, the one that most directly impacts consumption and investment decisions, went from more than 1% per month in the second quarter of 2020 to almost -1% per month in the first quarter of 2021 and to neutrality in May and June ", describes Ecolatina.
Consequently, "a fixed monetary policy rate, instead of giving monetary policy certainty and predictability,
filled it with uncertainty and erraticity
."
In this way, retail savers are left with
few options
to beat inflation (outside of the still little known fixed term UVA, which offers a minimum rate plus inflation for the month).
"We see some pressure from investors to want to get out of the peso," says Ariel Manito, commercial manager of Portfolio Personal Inversiones.
"This is something that was expected to happen as we began to go through
a second electoral semester
.
"
Despite this desire to avoid weight, Manito recommends caution.
"After the recent escalation of the alternative dollars it is necessary to be careful to enter to pay cedears or assets in dollars with the exchange rate in
$ 180
or more".
The risk is to eat the climb and end up validating an overshooting as happened last October, when the blue reached
$ 195
and then began to deflate.
Here analysts make two points.
The first is that due to the effect of inflation, those $ 195 from October are
$ 270
from today.
The second is that unlike what happened in that escalation, this time the Central Bank has enough dollars to have a more efficient intervention in the market.
So far this year the Central has already pocketed
US $ 7.5 billion
in purchases.
And his good part of that amount went to pay debts and imports and to control financial dollars, he still has solid net reserves to be noticed.
"The government hardly wants to go to the elections with an exacerbated exchange rate and it is real that it
has firepower.
In fact, when things got complicated in March, it managed to put the dollar to sleep with its artillery. In this framework, we will have to see how they follow the restrictions to know if what we have seen so far is all or just a few first steps, "said Manito.
AQ
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