In the last stretch of January, the Ministry of Economy instructed the Central Bank to go out and repurchase Argentine debt securities in dollars, in a measure that was questioned by both the market and the opposition.
Of the
US$1,000 million that would be allocated for this purpose, the Central spent US$374 million in January alone,
according to City data.
But the lack of net reserves is worrying and could put a stop to this manoeuvre.
In the first three rounds of this month, the Central would have bought another US$147 million.
More than 90% of the operations
focused on the Global 2030 bond,
the bond that investors use the most to convert cash to liquid.
In this way, a total of US$ 500 million would have already been used.
Looking at the foreign exchange market, the strategy paid off:
cash with settlement fell 1.2% in February and closed on Friday at $362.95.
At the same time, the MEP dollar is advancing just 0.7% this month and ended last week at $357.36.
But from the point of view of the parities of the titles, the reason given by Massa to justify this repurchase
does not seem to have an impact:
the GD30 closed on Friday at a lower price than it was on January 18, when this plan was announced. .
In Delphos they warned that in this way, the prices of dollarized bonds "are moving away from the maximums observed on the day of the announcement, influenced by a
negative trend
in the rest of the emerging debt"
In the city they insist that the cost of this measure is high
: the persistent drop in reserves and the warning from the IMF would force the Economy to review these operations.
"The IMF communicated that the reserves continue to be scarce and expressed its preference for not having risks in opposition to the measure adopted by Massa to repurchase debt in dollars," they said in the LCG consultancy.
"The government insists that this does not alter the net reserves, but rather the gross ones. However, both in gross and net reserves the country continues to be below a standard with which it can have a normal development, that is, without an exchange restriction".
It is precisely the
lack of dollars
that can force the Government to somehow stop the move it designed to prevent parallel dollars from skyrocketing.
The economist Fernando Marull affirmed: "In February, agriculture will continue to liquidate little and the BCRA will continue to sell in the exchange market. It knows that it only has
US$ 5,700 million and it has to reach April.
Luckily it rained in January and it puts a floor on the crop deterioration. The crop will be bad, but not very bad."
In the market they take it for granted that Sergio Massa is going to have to "get a rabbit out of the hat" again in the short term.
A
third edition of the "soybean dollar" program
is taken for granted, as well as the realization of a loan guaranteed by international organizations, the famous "repo" that has been in the pipeline since the arrival of the Tigrense to Economy.
This is a common operation in the banking world, where investors buy cash securities and manage the operation in reverse with a specific term and interest.
This option was discarded when Massa took office at the Palacio de Hacienda, due to the
high financial cost
that it implied due to the low price of dollar bonds.
The rally in debt instruments puts it back on the table,
although it would imply rates of around 30%.
look too
Sergio Massa asks that he not be cheated with inflation, but he is the one who needs a 'trap'
Due to the effect of meat on inflation, they will discount 10% on purchases and help farmers
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