For the second consecutive round, the Central Bank had to go out and sell foreign currency with force to meet market demand. This Tuesday it got rid of US $ 76 million, which adds to the US $ 48 million on Monday.
Thus, the numbers of the Central so far in June become negative. It had started the month with purchases, with the tails of the end of the soybean dollar 3, which allowed it to pocketUS $ 86 million between Thursday and Friday of last week. But with the latest sales, the result of the month is negative with a selling balance of US $ 38 million.
The new signs of weakness of the Central Bank barely impacted the exchange market, where the calm that reigned during most of May is maintained. The blue dollar gave up one peso and is trading today at S 484, while the financial dollars remain practically stable.
The MEP dollar, which is traded on the Buenos Aires stock exchange, increased 0.3% to $473.3. While the spot with liqui, the way by which companies are dollarized, advances 0.4%, to $ 496.5.
So far in June, the financial dollars remain contained because the Government continues to use the scarce foreign currency it has to intervene in the market, Throughout May it went through this way US $ 800 million, half of what it bought during the entire validity of the soybean dollar 3, which lasted from April 10 to 31 last month.
The market is still waiting for confirmation of the arrival of some anabolic that reinforces the Central Bank's sagging net reserves – those that it has available to intervene in the market – which show a negative result of US $ 1,700 million.
Gross reserves, which include the Chinese swap, gold, contributions from international organizations and reserve requirements of banks' dollar deposits, pierced the US$ 33,000 million barrier and fall to US$ 32,869 million.
Massa's letters
Minister Sergio Massa's first bet was the extension of the swap with China. On his trip to Beijing, Massa agreed that they will be able to use an additional $5 billion from the swap. This US$ 000,5 million is added to the US$ 000,5 million that were already authorized and that can be used to pay for imports with China. According to Massa, he said that they will also be able to use yuan to intervene in the market, but that has not been proven until now.
The next card left to Massa is to get the endorsement of the Monetary Fund to advance this month the totality of the disbursements of the year, which total US $ 10,800 million. That decision has been postponed and with it the minister's own trip to Washington, which they now say would take place within ten days.
Anyway, in his environment they assure that the minister will only travel when everything is closed. And that's where the difficulties appear. How much is the IMF really willing to advance in the midst of the failure to meet the goals set out in the agreement and the escalation of electoral tension and what will it ask in return – an acceleration of the pace of devaluation?-.
In Massa's sleeve would be a third card to capture currencies that for now they do not want to use but that in the market they see as inevitable: to launch the soybean dollar 4, at a higher price, between $ 350 and $ 400, which works as a stimulus to capture the soy derivatives that are still in the hands of soybeans.
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