The blue dollar jumped strongly and closed at $945, just 13 days before the elections. For its part, the MEP closed at $845, in the face of strong government intervention, and the CCL was close to $900. In turn, the wholesale dollar remains anchored at $350 but the futures market discounts a strong devaluation At the end of the year. Given this, Ambit set out to find out What do various economists think about this escalation of the illegal banknote, what is behind it and what we can expect these days.
Pablo Repetto of Aurum values
“This rise is influenced by the political decision to boost fiscal spending to favor the fiscal performance of the ruling party (injection of pesos into the market) and due to the degree of uncertainty that it implies a dollarization plan that requires the most ferocious escape from weight possible in order to facilitate that plan.
Ramiro Castiñera of Econometrica
“The inflation of the last two months has already eaten up the entire 21% devaluation of the official dollar after the PASO. The real exchange rate has accumulated a delay of 30% since the exchange rate split at the end of 2019. The magnitude implies that the official dollar should rise 40% to around $500, only to return to the values of the last months of the Government of Cambiemos”.
“But that dollar is not a reference either. Cambiemos decided to have a backward dollar throughout his entire administration, which he maintained by flooding the economy with dollars of foreign debt.”
“Therefore, the last time the BCRA had a unified exchange market and accumulated reserves by purchasing the commercial surplus and not the dollars of the foreign debt that the State took on, The official dollar at today’s prices would be $650. To reach that value, the official dollar needs to rise by almost 90%.
“Just to get an idea of the magnitude, the official dollar in the midst of hyperinflation in 1989, at today’s prices it would be $1,900. Magnitude that implies multiplying x5 the official dollar. The future dollar is already operating at $700 for the month of December of this year $1,000 by February 2024. In the latest publication of the Market Expectations Survey (REM) published every month by the BCRA, the consensus of market expectations already expects an official dollar above $700 for the month of February 2024.”
Amilcar Collante from CESUR
“I think this latest increase is electoral. You have a Central Bank that is losing reserves all the time and they aim to end the year around US$8 billion in negative. “The Central Bank is intervening very strongly in alternative dollars, which is why it is losing dollars every day.”
“On the other hand, there is the fiscal issue of Sergio Massa with the silver plan and the desperation to try to reverse the electoral result of the PASO”
“In recent days it has been seen that the polls maintain Javier Milei as the candidate with the greatest probable flow of votes. It is still not known if he could win in the first round. The peso is already dead. You also have the non-renewal of fixed terms encouraging people to get out of peso positions and they make the dollar higher”.
“There is no certainty about what a dollarization process would be like and there you need dollars that are not there and it is not clear how you can get them. With a higher dollar it is easier to organize, it is easier to make the exchange. “Now it doesn’t talk much about the consequences on the real economy of taking the dollar to that level.”
“Now on the 22nd, if Milei wins, she has to be ultra cautious and talk specifically about whether she has those dollars. “The fewer dollars we get, either we will not be able to do dollarization, or we will have an exchange rate so high that there will be quasi-hyper inflation.”
Jorge Neyro
“Financial dollars are more controlled after last week’s measures but the blue reacted to Javier Milei’s statements about fixed terms. The blue is a small market with a lot of volatility and reacts quickly to these statements. At this juncture the anchor should be politics. “It’s possible it could reach $1,000 before the election.”
Sergio Chouza from Consultora Sarandí
“The pre-electoral dollarization of each odd year was brought forward and already has noticeable effects on asset prices. The acceleration in short periods has the typical ingredients of a bullfight. “The government does not have instruments to supply this dollarization of portfolios.”
“Without nominal anchors, it juggles the lack of dollars and the total decoupling of macro expectations. The objective: to leave the car parked in December with the road uphill.”
“As for the macro variables for the end of the year, we increase the forecast of the MEP price up to $950, given the acceleration of the run on the dollar. “We preserve the red mark on the GDP projection, due to the effects of the shortage of dollars and higher inflation.”
“We left a red indicator in the CPI forecast, due to the lack of nominal anchors. We maintain the follow-up mark on the primary deficit projection. We maintain the projection of net reserves at a drop of US$8 billion due to the sharp decline in exports “.
Source: Ambito
