The blue dollar jumped to $381 and puts pressure on inflation in January and February

With a jump of five pesos on the day, the blue dollar reached

the highest nominal value reached so far.

With an exchange rate gap of 107%, the informal sector puts pressure on inflation in January and February, which is around 6%.

In the three weeks that elapsed in January,

with this, it takes the lead in the escalation of the dollars that are deployed in the Argentine market.

While the official one, which reaches

in the wholesale segment, advances at a rate of 4.35%, the MEP climbed 7.9% and cash with liquidity, 4.6%.

With a week to go before the end of January, this rise in the blue raises the floor for prices that are set to end the first month of 2023 at around 6%. That level would also be the base of inflation for February.

With these prospects

of minister Sergio Massa's forecast that the consumer price index will slow down and begin with 3% starting in April are fulfilled.

What has been slowing down in recent weeks was the rate of rise of the official dollar.

Although the Central Bank a few months ago sought to bring the exchange rate to the same speed as prices, the

- today at

- slowed down as officials saw that inflation was escalating.

But with such a restrictive exchange rate, it is no longer enough to stop the official dollar to anchor inflation:

because they do not know what dollar they are going to have to use .

replenish your stock.

With the current restrictions, in many cases, importers are forced to use their own dollars to import, so they apply the replacement cost that those bills will have to their products.

With today's jump, the blue was

which with its price of

is the highest in the market.

The government has been downplaying the rise in the blue, arguing that it increased for seasonal reasons related to vacations: being cheaper than the Qatar dollar, those who travel abroad prefer to take tickets rather than pay by card.

In the official dispatches they maintain that the strong demand from tourists occurs in the first half of January, so they expected it to loosen up in the second.

But they were also betting that Sergio Massa's debt buyback plan would contribute to putting a ceiling on financial dollars and by extension this would push back the blue.

was launched six days ago

, financial dollars increased 2.5%.

Country risk, the indicator that measures the over-cost of Argentine debt, and which was Massa's primary objective, barely registers a drop of

So far, the Central Bank has allocated close to

to repurchase bonds , a third of what was planned.

In this session, the bonds targeted by Massa rose by around 0.5%.

The good news of the day for Miguel Pesce's team was that the selling streak that led him to part with US$200 million in recent days ended: today he managed to buy US$2 million.

In the meantime, the climate continued to worsen in the market while the investigation by the National Securities Commission progresses, which on Monday began to send the first information requests to brokerage firms to analyze whether there were leaks that explain the sharp rise in volume of bonds traded prior to the announcement of the debt repurchase.

This Tuesday, the cash with liquid closed at

, a drop of 0.9% on the day, while the MEP rose 0.5%, to

"The dollars remain firm despite government interventions that try to keep them contained. Closing prices are affected by last-minute operations in which they seek to mark lower prices than those operated for much of the day," they warn. from Aurum Securities. 

"

that prevails in the economy", they mark from Aurum.

AQ

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