After a pause for the XXL weekend and attentive to the news that may come from China after the trip of the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, the exchange market will operate again this Monday in a context of relative calm in the parallel segment and with doubts regarding the possibility of the Central Bank to get dollars, and be able to retain them in their reserves.
The "soybean dollar 3" program will come to an end, as it had been planned at the beginning, this Wednesday. Until Friday, just over US $ 3,500 million had been liquidated in this way and in the market they estimate that it will close with revenues of dollars close to US $ 4,000 million. The original expectation of the Government was that US $ 5,000 million would enter and in the market they now speculate with a fourth edition of this differential exchange rate for agriculture.
The "soybean dollar" lost power over the course of its editions and in this last round the Central Bank was able to keep only 24% of the foreign currency that exporters entered. Despite the initial refusal of the Government to reissue this type of benefits, in the market they do not rule out that some incentive in price may reappear to compensate for the lack of dollars as a result of the drought.
The fall in gross reserves is what is in the eye of the storm: in the month US $ 2,333 million have already left the coffers of the Central Bank. Despite this scenario of increasing fragility, in the parallel market the currency crisis of late April seems to have been tamed, or at least anesthetized for a while.
On Wednesday, the blue dollar closed at $ 493, just two pesos from its nominal historical maximum, but the financial dollars remained despite the noise generated by a last-minute rule of the National Securities Commission (CNV) that imposes a new trap on those who operate with bonds to get dollars in the financial market.
Financial analyst Christian Buteler said: "On Wednesday, after the new regulations, the "official" MEP/CCL had a small decline, most likely to settle even a little lower and then resume the underlying uptrend." The CNV measure prevents those who have traded with bonds to get the so-called "MEP dollar" or the spot with settlement from using the result of these operations to buy other securities in the market again.
"While those dollars are widely accessible, the gap with the blue shouldn't widen too much," Buteler said. "First because if I have the blank money why would I pay $ 492 for something I can get at $ 460 and second because the roller was cut with other instruments and not with the blue. Although it is mixing white with black the larger that gap is widened, the more profitable it is to run that risk."
In this scenario, exchange rate tension remains latent. An operator consulted by Clarín said that, without news of a possible disbursement from the Monetary Fund, even if Massa achieved his goal of obtaining the Chinese endorsement to expand the uses of the exchange swap, the needle would not move too much.
"Dollars will continue to be pressured upwards in segments in which the government does not participate. They will continue to intervene by selling cheap dollars with AL and GD but there will be no supply of private dollars in those markets. So they will continue to lose reserves trying to show a lower price than the real one," he said.
The last stretch of May and the beginning of the sixth month of June could occur in a context of relative exchange rate calm that with the passing of the days could transform into a new pressure in the parallel market. The Central Bank raised its daily pace of devaluation in recent rounds, but still keeps it below the inflation projected for this month by the main consultants and interest rates in the economy.
A little more than two months before the PASO, the market does not rule out new adjustments to the trap to avoid a new spike in the exchange rate. " If there is no new soybean dollar 4, the government points to negotiations with the IMF, China and Brazil. For us, the alternatives of more traps or some kind of splitting continue," said economist Fernando Marull.
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