Daniel Fernandez Canedo
08/21/2021 12:41 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 08/21/2021 12:41 PM
The race for investment decisions in the face of
elections
is in full swing these days and there are very different positions.
Argentina, a
bimonetary country
that has the weight for transactions and the dollar to save, developed a long experience in positioning itself before the elections.
And, traditionally, the answer is the
dollarization of the
investment
portfolios
of both companies and ordinary savers.
With the official dollar at $ 102.50, the wholesaler at $ 97.32 and the
blue
at $ 182, the 87% gap is the clearest indicator of the expectation of market operators in relation to
what they expect in exchange matters after the elections
, of the internal
elections
of September 12, STEP? or of the legislative elections of November 14?
Traders closely follow the evolution of the
gap, wide but stabilized
after the decision of the Central Bank to increase the official dollar 1% per month (below inflation) and a
blue
that when it touches $ 185 lights red lights in the Government control board and "friendly hands" appear always ready to increase the offer in that segment.
Economists, meanwhile, are also closely following the evolution of the Central Bank's net reserves, which from July to this part - there is a report from the consultancy firm
Equilibra
de Martín Rapetti that focuses on the issue - fell by US $ 1,500 million, They are around US $ 6.4 billion and would
end at US $ 5.3 billion by the end of the year
.
Since that level of reserves would be
insufficient
compared to maturities with international organizations (IMF, IDB, World Bank, etc.) that in the first quarter of 2022 will reach
US $ 7,206 million
.
On the domestic front, the exchange rate table is also complex when confronting the
amount of pesos circling the economy
against the dollars in the Central Bank.
A study exercise
Anker
argues that if at the end of the year the net foreign exchange reserves are around US $ 5,000 million, they
could support only 15.6% of the monetary liabilities
that represent pesos in circulation plus those in deposits plus those placed in Liquidity Bills or immobilized in banks.
This relationship of
many pesos and few dollars
to meet external commitments is the base on which they rely, inside and outside the Government, those who consider that a devaluation of the peso will be inexorable after the November elections.
But this supposed inevitable jump of the dollar has, in turn, important variants.
For example, the Central Bank assures that
an abrupt devaluation
must be
ruled out outright
even when negotiations with the IMF to refinance the US $ 44 billion loan are postponed until March.
The position with the most supporters among officials and consultants is that after the legislative election and leaving aside the result, the Government would give friendly signals to the IMF and would increase the dollar slowly
from 1% to 2.5% or 3% per month
.
What if
Kirchnerism becomes radicalized
without caring about the outcome of the election and resists reaching some kind of agreement with the IMF to obtain financing?
Companies and consultants cannot imagine a viable horizon.
Given this scenario, there are two positions among economists.
One that highlights that Vice President Cristina Kirchner resists hard onslaught, but would be
greatly complicated by an exchange rate
surge that drives another jump in inflation.
The other highlights a behavior that the market made clear in recent days and is the high level of sensitivity when investing pesos.
The last tender carried out by the Treasury to obtain financing showed not only the
"extreme short-termism"
but also that there are fewer who want to pass the elections placed in government bonds despite the fact that they yield more.
More than half of the financing that the Treasury obtained from Martín Guzmán last week ($ 49,309 million out of a total of $ 94,798 million) was placed in fixed rate bonds (they offer 44.28% annual effective rate)
maturing on October 29
.
The counterpart of this result is the evolution of the bonds tied to the official
dollar (dollar-linked)
that mature in April 2022 and offer the devaluation of the peso until then and a
"negative" rate of 0.8%.
A clear bet that the exchange rate jump would be inevitable.
The protection of savings in times of
annual
inflation
of 50%
and a reloaded exchange rate close the path of profitable possibilities until the elections when, it is assumed, another political framework and economic definitions will emerge to begin to balance the strong imbalances that have been accumulating since months ago.
LGP