Argentina’s peso keeps falling despite $50B loan
buenos aires — Argentina is struggling to stop the peso’s plunge just a week after obtaining the biggest loan in the history of the International Monetary Fund.
Traders are desperate for policy makers to lay out a strategy to curb the volatility, and complain that all they’re getting in response is disjointed and unpredictable policy. The rout deepened as the currency tumbled more than six per cent against the dollar to a record low, extending its decline since the end of April to almost 27 per cent.
Argentina’s peso tumble continued to escalate, upending local businesses, sapping the value of savings account and adding to the woes of a country already under siege from double-digit inflation and fiscal and current account deficits. BlackRock and Brown Brothers Harriman are among shops calling for further peso declines as outside factors including a resurgent dollar, rising global interest rates and less investor tolerance for risk conspire against an easy solution for Argentina.
“There’s anxiety in the trading desks because there’s no indication of where the peso is going next,” said Jose Nogueira, a partner and trader at ABC Mercado de Cambios in Buenos Aires. “We’re lacking proper signalling from the central bank.”
A surge in dollar demand has meant that the exchange market only has a respite when publicly managed banks buy pesos in the market, according to a note by ABC. The peso slid on Thursday with no intervention from the central bank amid rumors that some of its directors will depart from institution. Trading on the MAE electronic market fell to $240 million on Thursday, the lowest since September 2017, and almost half of the past year’s average daily volume of $471 million.