The open investigation on the repurchase of debt would not be an obstacle in Sergio Massa's plans.
On the contrary, after ordering these actions, the Ministry of the Economy
will continue with the operations to obtain up to US$ 1,000 million in dollar bonds,
a measure with which it aims in principle to
curb a run on the dollar and thus avoid a eventual impact on inflation.
According to Economy sources, the idea is to go ahead with the order given by Massa last Wednesday, when he announced the start of the public debt repurchase.
And, in parallel, the National Securities Commission (CNV) will begin this Monday the investigation requested by the minister to find out if there were
leaks about the operations,
speculative maneuvers to increase financial dollars and who were the supposed beneficiaries.
The controversy was unleashed from
the record volume of operations registered in global bonds the day before the announcement,
which left the GD30 in its sights.
The movements immediately generated suspicion in the financial market and, given this situation, the opposition came out to alert the possibility that
officials or businessmen
friends of power have benefited from privileged information to buy bonds in advance.
So far, the Central Bank has
purchased at least US$130 million
in global bonds GD30, GD29 and GD35.
According to official data, the entity went looking for US$300 million and was offered US$217 million, of which it accepted only US$130 million for a price below the cutoff.
And of that amount, US$ 92 million corresponded to GD29 and GD30, the most used to buy financial dollars in the bond market.
The minister explained on Tuesday that the objective of the operations was to improve the debt profile with a drop in the rates of the titles and, therefore, of the Country Risk, while from his own portfolio they also recognized that they
sought to keep the CCL at bay and the MEP, two parallel prices that arise from the purchase and sale of bonds
.
The Central Bank, in turn, raised the rate of repos that it pays for the placement of pesos to 1 day to avoid dollarization.
The balance of all these measures was a drop of US$ 280 million in reserves since Monday,
without achieving a tangible improvement in the financial climate
.
Although the Argentine Country Risk fell 3.2% on Friday and was located at 1,876 basis points,
the financial dollars ended up rising
(the MEP at $352 and the CCL at $362.2, barely two pesos below the peak it touched last week) and
the BCRA returned to selling reserves in the exchange market.
Thus, analysts believe that reserves were sacrificed for a temporary improvement.
"With Monday's newspaper, it was not effective in lowering the CCL, it does not seem to have had a significant impact on the country risk, it does not affect the maturity profile in the coming years and
US$ 1,000 million of reserves are lost along the way that the country needs like water and oxygen
," said Miguel Kiguel, director of Econviews.
Massa's team maintained that dollars were used to buy back debt, without specifying where they came from.
The expectation is to cover this expense with eventual savings in energy imports.
Economists, on the other hand, expect
the pressures that began with the strong rise in the blue to continue
, in a context of scarcity of net reserves and a bad forecast for the supply of foreign currency, which could reduce the sale of agriculture by up to US$ 10,000 million.
"There is some firmness in the dollar, although the measure attempts a kind of temporary calm, there are still pressures. The delay of the real exchange rate went from 26.6 percentage points at the end of September 2022 to approximately 18.6 percentage points This, despite the significant reduction in the aforementioned delay, continues to indicate a
significant loss of competitiveness
compared to the 2021 average," said Agustín Berasategui, from ACM.
Massa suggested in his letter to the CNV that the debt repurchase
deactivated a "speculative attack",
in reference to those who sell bonds in pesos to buy others in dollars, putting pressure on cash with liquidity.
But the measures raise doubts.
"The pressures on the CCL are not affected by the Central Bank's purchase of bonds with dollars from the reserves, it can be affected by the purchase of bonds against pesos, but the IMF does not accept it," said Kiguel.
