After two days without a price, the free dollar reappeared in the City at $1,050 for sale

The market expectantly follows the movement of exchange operations after the presidential election and after days marked by uncertainty and the lack of price reference.

It happens that last week there was a sequence of control operations plus raids and complaints about the functioning of the parallel market, which between Wednesday and Friday put into question standby the price of the dollar in the informal market. For this reason, during the last rounds a new gap was generated between the information published by the agency Reuters, with a value of free dollar of reference around $900, and specialized financial information systems that valued it above $1,000 for sale, all within a framework of minimal concrete operations, since the few operational “caves” were inclined only to purchaseno offer for sale.

This Monday, already with a result since it consecrated the presidential candidate Sergio Massa of Unión por la Patria as the one with the advantage in the second round of elections on November 19, the parallel market began to rearrange itself after two rounds of “virtual holidays” and returned with a free dollar $1,050 for saleafter having scored at noon a maximum 1,075 pesos, a record above the $1,050 reached intraday on October 10.

Despite the volatility, alternative dollars tend to converge somewhat after the political “shock.” The “liquid” stock exchange through Cedear (certificates backed by foreign shares) falls 10.4% to $995.19 on average, after having touched 1,110 pesos on Friday, while the “liqui” with Argentine shares ( according to the ADRs that operate on Wall Street) falls 1.6%, to 998 pesos.

“You never end up 'freezing' anything. We had the slate blue dollar and the real market blue dollar. I say that the dollar blue It is the people's dollar. It is the dollar that people use when it comes to having a fungible good that protects them from inflation and makes them feel secure. Yesterday, despite everything that was done, 1050/1100 continued to be sold in the market,” commented the analyst and business advisor. Salvador Di Stefano.

“What is happening is very crazy. What happened in PASO has been very marked in people's memories, where the next day you had the wholesale dollar at 280 pesos and it increased to 350 pesos, so this week is how it paralyzed you. Many times it is talked about blue but operations of all kinds were paralyzed. The one who sold flour stopped selling flour. Nobody was selling anything because a collective imagination was generated that there was going to be a devaluation and an increase in prices. That is not going to happen,” Di Stefano confided.

With Massa's victory by almost seven points over the ultraliberal Javier Mileifrom La Libertad Avanza, all future contracts registered violent falls between 20% and 25% this Monday in the Electronic Open Market (MAE) and the Matba-Rofex.

“If there are no disruptive statements from the candidates who reached the runoff, exchange tensions should subside in the short term, although again in an economy without anchors or program, generalized lack of coordination can have unexpected effects. There will be twenty business days where the intensity of the imbalances can be highlighted or begin to be nuanced, the latter being a low probability scenario,” he warned. Martin Calveiraresearch economist at the IAE Business School of the Austral University.

Furthermore, and in the midst of statements by the opposition about the value of the official exchange rate starting the day after the elections, the vice minister of Economy, Gabriel Rubinsteinhad promised that the wholesale dollar would maintain its value of $350 until November 15, after which a daily adjustment stage would begin at a rate of 3% monthly.

The exchange gap between the official dollar and the “blue” dollar surpassed 200 percent this Monday, a maximum in 34 years. This gap is the largest since March 31, 1989, when the country was experiencing hyperinflation. According to data from the Central Bank, that day the gap reached 214.8% between the commercial dollar - for foreign trade operations - at 15.82 australes and a free dollar, at 49.8 australes.

“In the week before the elections, tension continued to rise, which was reflected in a new increase in financial dollars and a fall in international reserves, which reached new lows. Despite the implementation of differential exchange rates and the approval of a new tranche of the swap with China, the elections were reached with the exchange gap at record levels,” he indicated Martin PoloCohen's chief strategist.

On the other hand, there was strong intervention in the stock market dollars, to also put a ceiling on these alternative prices before the elections last Sunday. Martín Polo highlighted “the strong intervention of the BCRA in financial dollars, which would have had a cost of USD 500 million in the week—more than USD 1,000 million in October.”

In this sense, one of the decisions that the Government must make is how it will continue to act on financial exchange rates, markets in which it had to intervene strongly to avoid uncontrolled increases. The MEP dollar operates just above 900 pesos, while the cash with settlement settles above 1,000 pesos per unit.