With a decisive boost from the shares of the energy sector, which strengthened in the last part of the year, the leading panel of BYMA accumulated a jump of more than 40% throughout 2022 measured in CCL dollarswhile the Turkish Bist 100 scaled around 80%.
Measured in weights, the annual bag yield exceeded 130%, about 35 points above inflation (it is estimated that the year will end around 95%), making it the most profitable investment in local currency, beating the official dollar (+72.5%), the fixed term (+70%); blue (+66.8%); to financial exchange rates (+65%), or to bonds in pesos (they posted increases of up to 97%).
The great performance of the local equity market becomes relevant, moreover, if one takes into account that throughout the year, paradoxically, Dollar bonds fell sharply, around 20% (despite the 45% rebound since July), something that was reflected in the 25% rise in Argentine country risk, which went from 1,688 points to the current 2,100 points, after approaching 3,000 points in July, at a critical institutional moment.
BYMA’s leading panel broke several nominal records in recent days, exceeding 200,000 basis points for the first time, while in the measurement that the market pays the most attention to, the one established in CCL dollars, approached 600 points this week, an unprecedented level since August 2019, before the historic collapse after the unfavorable electoral result for the then President Macri.
If Argentine stocks went up strong on average, with sovereign bonds falling, there has to be a reason behind them. “We believe that despite the fact that Argentina has major macroeconomic problems (high inflation, exchange controls, exchange gap, fiscal deficit), ‘the micro’ is giving good news. For example, the agricultural-livestock sector is pulling with good prices of agricultural commodities, the Oil & Gas sector is pulling the hand of Vaca Muerta, which is growing more and more; the energy sector is also bringing good news”described Martin Polo, Head of Strategy at Cohen Aliados Financieros.
For his part, Augustus Dargetpresident of Silver Cloud Advisors, told Ambit that the performance of Argentine shares is “surprising, seeing the performance of the American and European stock markets, where the losses were large.” For example, the Nasdaq technology index skidded more than 30% in 2022.
“The rise in the local stock market has several reasons for having developed a high performance and showing it again next year. Operating profits grew 30% and debts were reduced by an average of 40% compared to 2018. Prices had lost no less than 85% of its value in dollars in the last five years and the prospects for a change of government traditionally feed hope”expanded Darget.
These hopes have a foothold in several issues: “All voices speak of reducing the deficit; inflation and the need to recreate a capital market. To take advantage of the world demand for food and energy. The construction of the gas pipeline that will allow in It won’t be long before we are gas exporters and forget about energy imports,” remarked the president of Silver Cloud Advisors.
A report by Adcap Grupo Financiero highlighted that “Argentina has been playing its own game and seems disconnected from the rest of the world, and a sample of this is the great revaluation that the S&P Merval had this year.”
Regarding politics, Adcap stated that “the country still needs to build political consensus, such as putting together a common agenda to have more predictability when designing its economic policy.” That said, they considered “That the arrival of Sergio Massa at the Ministry of Economy was positive, with some measures that could somehow relax the macro and the valuations were very low and overburdened. In this last month of the year, the stock market had an important rally, which especially benefited the energy sector, which includes oil, gas and public services, such as the generation and distribution of electricity”.
Record Argentine stock market: the shares with the best performance of 2022
A) Yes, the energy sector was the spearhead of the Stock Market, with exponential returns in pesos in some specific cases. During the first part of 2022, the forceful rise in oil prices, and consequently, fuel prices worldwide caused by the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, was one of the main factors that have generated concern in the markets. Mainly, because it ended up driving inflation even higher in economies around the world.
However, despite the fact that most financial assets have suffered from this, after the start of a more restrictive monetary policy by the Federal Reserve in order to contain inflation, “energy companies have been the most benefited and their performance was in contrast to the rest of the actions”, said Maximiliano Donzelli, Head of Research at IOL Invertironline.
“The main winning stocks that pushed the index up are the same as what was seen in external markets: energy,” coincided from Inviu.
For this reason, the great performance of the Argentine market during this 2022 was highly marked by companies linked to the energy sector. In the area of regulated energy, the rate adjustment even allowed the companies that are part of this sector to achieve a clear improvement in their income.
Thus, in the leading panel, the best companies in the local market during 2022 were Transportadora Gas del Sur, which registered a resounding rise of 339.5%, followed by the oil company YPF with a rise of 295.5%, while the podium was closed by Transportadora Gas del Norte, with a growth of 269.2%.
Very close to them, appeared the electric Transener (+230%); Central Port (+228%); and Sociedad Comercial del Plata (+212%).
However, in addition to these papers, 80% of the shares that make up the S&P Merval index beat the financial dollar and 50% beat the high levels of Argentine inflation.
A separate paragraph for some of the superlative increases that were registered in the panel of non-leading companies (general panel): Capex flew 561%; Cellulose, 443%; Camuzzi Gas Pampeana, 378%; Cuyana Gas Distributor, 328%; and Endesa Costanera, 270%.
The other side of the energy sector were the banks, whose shares barely managed to rise up to 94%, that is, almost the same as annual inflation, except Grupo Financiero Valores, which reaped an increase of 161%. The roles of local financial entities “they were left with a lag given the fears of restructuring or reprofiling of Treasury instruments that they have on their balance sheet”they explained from Inviu.
On Wall Street, for its part, the most salient returns of Argentine companies were recorded by Vista Energy (+101%); YPF (+140%); Transportadora Gas del Sur (+85.4%); Tenaris (+66.2%); Central Port (+54.2%); America Corporation (+50.4%); and Pampa Energía (+50%).
For his part, The five Cedears that had the best performance during 2022 are also from firms that are linked to the energy sector. In this way, those who have risen the most in pesos since the beginning of the year are: Vista Energy (+416.7%); Tenaris (+198.5%); ExxonMobil (+191.85%); Schlumberger (+190%) and Halliburton (178%), indicated an IOL report.
Bonds in dollars and pesos
Different from stocks was the performance of Argentine sovereign bonds. Despite having registered a considerable rebound in recent months, rising in some cases by more than 45% in dollars from their lows registered in July, government bonds in hard currency ended the year with a negative yield of 20% on average.
“Although there were no macroeconomic news or concrete changes in the forward perspectives that could have motivated the rebound recorded in the second semester, the setting up of positions took place in a context where the parities were at historically low values,” they pointed out from the IOL Research team.
Therefore, this increase in demand (reflected in prices) was caused by players who began to position themselves already thinking of 2023 added to a favorable context of what is emerging fixed income.
“Hard dollar bonds fell by double digits, although at the end of the year there was a marked recovery. At their minimum for the year, the parities reached historical lows of 20”, they recalled from Inviu.
Regarding the weight segment, the CER bonds, more precisely the TX23 and TX24, had a yield in pesos of 84% and 70% respectivelywhich reflects a great disparity, depending on the year of maturity, partly due to expectations of devaluation and the possibility of future restructuring.
In the middle of the year there was a very strong contraction in the demand for CER-adjusted assets due to fears of their sustainability. “Since then, a significant selloff of these assets was seen. The curve was able to recover although the funds did not arrive to replicate the performance of the CER. Said selloff left investors somewhat nervous about the possibility that it could happen again. It is Therefore, despite the rapid recovery of the curve given the absence of other investments by regulated entities, the market remains quite cautious with regard to exposure to instruments in pesos”they added from Inviu.
Source: Ambito
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