The progress in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the prospect of obtaining fresh funds triggered a speculative sentiment in the futures market. What happened and what is the explanation?
With the formal start of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reach a new agreement that allows obtaining dollars to capitalize the Central Bank (BCRA), The market began to move in an attempt to anticipate a possible lifting of the exchange rate before the midterm elections.
The first signs observed in the local exchange futures market suggest that market actors expect said uprising involves some type of initial exchange adjustment. Although the Government expressed its resistance several times to this possibility due to the impact on inflation, the IMF insisted on several occasions on the need for a prior adjustment as a guarantee of sustainability.
Dollar: the agreement with the IMF advances with the objective of adding reserves to the BCRA
The growing gap between the values of short-term contracts and those expiring from the end of April reinforces this interpretation. This difference widened significantly after the BCRA announced, days ago, that it will reduce the crawling peg to 1% monthly starting in February.
On Wednesday, future dollar contracts traded higher for the sixth consecutive day. The largest increase was observed in the August period, the month for which the market prices an advance in the official exchange rate of 2.2%. Despite the announcement of reduction of the “crawling peg” to 1% monthly since February, the prices of the futures agreed in the market show a expected monthly adjustment of 1.8%on average, which would give a accumulated increase of 11.5% for the first semester. In this framework, the annualized nominal rates (TNA) converge to the 22%/23% area for the middle of the year.
The trader Adrián Wibly highlighted a few minutes ago in a post on the X network, accompanied by graphs, which show the increase in the gap in implicit interest rates. According to his observations, “The coverage as of July 2025 went from 3% to 4.7% (direct) on the expected Dollar + Crawling Peg, while that corresponding to December 2025 rose from 5% to 8.8%.”
The increase in these values, which was again widespread today, ranges between 0.32% for contracts expiring at the end of April and more than 1% for those expiring at the end of August. This reflects official exchange rate projections ranging from $1,113 in April to $1,191 in August. In comparison, if the planned update is applied, the values of the wholesale dollar should be at $1,084.50 and $1,128.60 for those dates, respectively.
Despite the movements seen in the latest rounds in futures contracts, The analysis suggests that although the Government announced a crawl of 1% for February, the futures market still does not reflect that expectation which generated rumors in the market. However, it must be clarified that it usually happens with contracts that the market is speculating with a possible devaluation and plays with the dollar rate until the time for adjustment arrives.
Although there is a possibility that a currency jump will be needed, currently they may be preferring to negotiate under other conditions on a temporary basis, which does not necessarily mean that the jump will occur in those months.
Source: Ambito
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