BUENOS AIRES, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Argentina’s financial market operated on Monday with a disparate trend, in a context of operations reduced by economic doubts for the short and medium term after the ruling party was defeated in the primary elections, in facing the legislative elections that will take place in November.
In the external context, the crisis of the Chinese real estate giant Evergrande, doubts about the next steps of the US Federal Reserve in terms of its stimulus policy and US employment data maintained operational caution, traders said.
“Domestic assets are still heavy and so it is that they cannot lift their heads despite the bad valuations, since political and economic uncertainty acts as a determining factor,” said Gustavo Ber, an economist at Estudio Ber.
The defeat of the Peronist government in the September primaries plunged the cabinet of President Alberto Fernández into a political crisis that led to changes of ministers and higher fiscal expenditures.
“In a context in which the possibility of exacerbating macroeconomic imbalances remains latent, we maintain the preference for conservative investment options that aim to protect capital in a context in which volatility could increase,” said the SBS Group.
* The leading stock index S&P Merval improved by 0.39%, to 77,933.82 units, at 12:40 local time (1540 GMT), after scoring a historical record level of 83,923.24 points after the defeat of the ruling party in mid-September. September, and of gaining 4.65% during the past week.
* Sovereign bonds in the OTC segment lost 0.2% on average, led by the negative trend in dollarized issues, where the Bonar30 benchmark fell 0.3%.
* The country risk measured by the JP.Morgan bank rose four basis points, to 1,614 units, after falling to less than 1,440 points after knowing the electoral result favorable to the opposition.
* In the exchange segment, the interbank peso depreciated by 0.09%, to 98.88 / 98.89 units per dollar, in a place with liquidity regulation by the central bank (BCRA) with sales or purchases of dollars of your reserves.
* The Government plans to close the year with an official exchange rate of 102.4 per dollar and businesses in the futures market showed levels of 118.30 pesos per dollar for next February.
* “The BCRA ended September selling a total of 950 million dollars, being the worst result since October 2020 and ending a positive streak of nine consecutive months,” said Roberto Geretto, an economist at Fundcorp.
“To make matters worse, the difference of more than 20 pesos between the ‘Senebi’ financial dollars versus those intervened by the BCRA makes containing the gap cost more,” he added.
* The current exchange restrictions encourage alternative dollars to be agreed outside the controlled market and carried out in a bilateral negotiation (Senebi), where transactions are not marked on electronic screens.
* The weight in the alternative markets was around 175.6 per dollar in the “Contado con Liquitación” stock market, 176.7 units in the so-called “MEP dollar” and 186 per dollar in the marginal exchange band.
(Reporting by Walter Bianchi; Edited by Lucila Sigal)