In the midst of exchange rate tranquility, expressed in the bearish trend of the official dollar and in the reserve purchasing capacity of the Central Bank (BCRA) —even with a declining interest rate—, there is a fact that is beginning to attract the attention of financial analysts: the slow but persistent widening of the gap with their peers, financial dollars and the exchange between them.
The quote of official wholesale dollar fell another $16while the MEP dollar fell only $8 and the cash with settlement (CCL), just $5.17. With these movements, the price difference between the official exchange rate and its different financial and legal variants, which in previous months had been decreasing and even became negative in some cases, it does not stop growing: it is already going from 3.73% to just over 8%.
In this way, there is already more than $113 difference between the official wholesale dollar and the average price of the CCL dollarwhich closed the day in $1467.09 (the gap is reduced to $82.09 if compared to the closure of $1385 from retail). But, above all, it opened a gap greater than 5% in the exchange between financiers (CCL/MEP)which is located in 4.75% for local versionsthe greatest distance from the May 15, 2024.
Translated, “This increasingly shows that a dollar in New York is not worth the same as a dollar here”explained Nau Bernues, CFA financial advisor who wonders why “Argentina is getting more and more involved in the stocks.”
The market believes that this trend, which was already hinted at weeks ago, finished consolidating after the BCRA extended the so-called cross constraint to operate banknote dollars against local financial dollars to operations with foreign accounts (Communication “A” 8417). The measure aims to avoid gains in pesos that some sophisticated operators achieved by arbitraging between both exchange rates.
The new restriction, which leaves 90 days out of the game to those who have performed that operation, “by limiting arbitrage in the market it could further deepen the CCL/MEP swap”, they had anticipated from Portfolio Personal Investments (PPI).
“In January and February, human transfers abroad were US$768 million and US$421 millionrespectively. In the extreme, this would be the offer that would lose the exchange (there are no data for March). The measure would be based on the loss of gross and liquid reserves, due to the pocketed portion of the dollar deposits generated by the transfer abroad,” they explained.
But its unwanted effect is this increasing distortionwhich by widening the gap could induce new speculative behaviors that, in the long run, generate noise about the current exchange rate calm.
“This gap was increasing during the summer, basically—we believe—as a collateral effect of the boom of placements of negotiable obligations (ON) of companies abroad. This trend was evidently strengthened after the new restriction on the last wheels,” they explained from IEB+, although they do not consider that, for the moment, it is more than an anecdotal difference.
“The distortion was already occurring when the price of surety ratewhich led many to take advantage of it to gain leverage. When you had to pay a dollar for cable abroad for an ON subscription, the market was already tense. Now this expanded that dynamic.“, described from Cohen Aliados Financieros when asked by THE NATION.
Analysts believe that until the market digests the new obstacle, these differentials have some further upward path. They agree in estimating that it will be necessary to see if they tend to stabilize or directly compress, later, but at the same time they warn that, If it continues to rise, “it should not be ruled out that this will have some noise and implications for the rest of the exchange market.”
