Due to the impossibility of borrowing abroad and the agreement with the IMF, the Government had to finance itself in recent times mainly through the placement of debt in pesos.
This policy
made it possible to reduce the Central Bank's monetary issue
, but it came at a cost:
rising interest rates and increasingly shorter maturities
as investors feared that
the debt would be restructured after the elections.
For analysts, some of this was seen in the debt tender this Wednesday, in which the Treasury
raised more than $400 billion, exceeding $107 billion in payouts for the week.
Half of what was received was through a
letter adjusted for inflation
(Lecer)
to June
with a positive annual rate of 5.24% and
higher than what the market paid
, which allowed taking advantage of the demand for coverage against the rise of 6% per month in January inflation.
The same was absorbed with a fixed-rate bill (Lede) in May with an
annualized return of 118%
, above the annualized inflation forecast for that period, of 97%.
"We continue to see the same thing,
they are placing short before PASO and paying more and more rates
, now the CER appetite has returned because
it became clear that inflation is not going to go down as Massa said
," said Gabriel Caamaño, economist at Consultora Ledesma.
The debt in pesos became one of the sensitive points of the electoral contest, which already started in the summer, as reflected in the crossover last week with Together for Change.
In a statement, the opposition rejected the use of titles in pesos, adjusted in dollars with
interest rates "impossible to pay",
denounced a situation of "financial fragility" and accused the government of leaving a
"time bomb"
for management incoming.
After the June crisis, which triggered the withdrawal of bond funds in pesos and the resignation of Martín Guzmán, the Central Bank went out to buy back debt in pesos and Massa
increased the "premium"
for investors to place their titles.
In August, Economía offered an annualized return of 97% per bill at a fixed rate.
Since then, the gap between the interest rate paid by the Treasury and inflation expectations has widened from 6 points to almost 20 points in some cases.
Since August, the gap between the interest rate on peso bonds and inflation has widened.
"There was a clear
change of course
from August, when the Treasury began to offer fixed-rate bills with increasingly higher rates compared to the inflation expected by the market (REM)," said Juan Pablo Albornoz, economist at the consulting firm Invecq.
"When the government needs to roll over a large amount, there is no other option than to pay the rate that the market is worth," said a market operator.
Despite the doubts planted by the opposition about the future of the debt, the Treasury managed to renew this week's commitments with
a public sector participation close to 50%,
according to official calculations.
The other side is the persistent difficulty in extending
payment
terms .
On this occasion, most of what was due was renewed for only up to four months (before the PASO of August), when in
September the average was 8 months.
Elections thus appear as a barrier
before which more and more maturities accumulate.
In April, by case, more than $2.4 trillion must be covered, so it is likely that there will be new exchanges.
"Wednesday's result was good, considering that it was able to attract positive net financing, on the other hand, it continues to stretch month by month, instead of being financed with instruments that mature beyond 2024," said Paula Gándara, from Adcap.
NE
look also
At the cost of a sharp drop in reserves, in January there was a slight drop in the public debt in dollars
Debt in pesos: after the crosses with the opposition for the "bomb" and the inflation of January, Economy faces a new test this Wednesday