The decline in the
blue dollar
continues in the first week of March.
This Wednesday it goes back one step and is trading at
$1,010,
just five pesos above the price it had at the start of the year.
In a market in which the bill has more supply than demand, the days at the end of January when the informal currency touched $
1,250
are long gone .
The decline of the blue dollar, which is practically flat while inflation jumped more than 35% in the first two months, is related to the
loss of purchasing power.
In this context in which salary increases are delayed, many Argentines
are forced to sell the "canuto"
of dollars that they had saved as savings to be able to face the rise in prices.
This leads to an abundance of sellers and a lack of buyers in the city of Buenos Aires and in the neighborhood caves.
In fact, whoever is going to sell their tickets will find purchase prices of
$980
.
The lack of demand extends to financial dollars, which have also been declining.
In the case of cash with liquid it falls 1.6%, to
$1,048,
and the MEP falls 1.2%, to
$1,017
.
In this case, the decline also responds to an imbalance between supply and demand.
With the implementation of BOPREAL, the bonus for importers,
part of the demand went towards that title instead of going to financial dollars.
In addition, there are still restrictions on importers' access to the Single and Free Exchange Market (MULC), since the Government is authorizing these operations in quotas.
Added to this is that thanks to the blend dollar for exporters, which allows 80% to be settled in the official dollar - today at $844 - and the other 20% in cash with liquid, the income of foreign currency has been sustained, which allowed the
Central Bank
has purchased
US$8.8 billion
since last December.
"Beyond the fact that the positive balance of the BCRA extends, and thus currencies continue to recover, operators continue to pay attention to the real exchange rate given that
"crawling-peg" running well below inflation
could in the coming months evaporate the improvement in competitiveness from last December's devaluation," said economist Gustavo Ber.
The doubt that persists in the market is whether the 2% monthly rearrangement of the exchange rate will be sustained throughout this month or will accelerate so that
the dollar closes the gap with inflation.
Despite this uncertainty, the idea that there will not be a sudden jump seems to prevail for now.
Today the exchange gap,
which reached 180% in October, was reduced to 20% in the case of blue, while with cash and liquid it is 24%.
The gap at these levels gives the Government air to anticipate that the end of the exchange rate is near.
In fact, President
Javier Milei
pointed out that
"February inflation will be around 15% and that the stocks would be lifted in the middle of the year if everything goes well."
"Even so, financial dollars continue to deflate, with
a gap already close to 20%
, a level that raises expectations about an exchange rate unification in the future, perhaps after the liquidation of the harvest in order to continue during that stage strengthening the balance of the BCRA," Ber highlighted.