The merval index of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange fell 4.92% this Monday and closed at 82,243.55 points amid strong declines in the main world stock markets with a collapse of Argentine companies in wall street.
The volume traded in shares reached 919.54 million pesos (7.53 million dollars).
On the main stock board all the papers ended in red. The main decline was for the shares of the agricultural company Cresud (-10.19%) and the electricity distributor Central Puerto (-6.67%).
Argentina’s financial market fell in line with firm risk aversion as a result of a recent rate hike by the US Federal Reserve (fed) and signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy, facts that add to the worrying local inflationary pressures and clashes within the government coalition.
The fed it raised its benchmark rate by half a percentage point to a range of 0.75% and 1%, the biggest increase in 22 years, as strict lockdowns in Shanghai stoked doubts about global economic growth and recession.
Analysts consulted by the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) raised their inflation estimate for the South American country to 65.1% for 2022, 5.9 percentage points higher than what they forecast the previous month.
“With inflation expected to continue to show some resilience in April, the focus will be on the data to be published by INDEC (statistics body) next Thursday,” said the consultancy firm Balanz.
He noted that in the global context “risk aversion fueled by the conflict in Ukraine, mobility restrictions in China and monetary policy in the United States had a profound impact on risk assets and stocks in particular.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will carry out this month the first revision of the recent agreement reached with the country for some 44,000 million dollars by which the Government promised to increase the reserves of the BCRA, reduce inflation and the fiscal deficit, increase interest rates and cut energy subsidies.
Over-the-counter sovereign bonds lost 0.8% on average, after falling 0.9% last week, while the Argentine country risk prepared by the JP. Morgan bank shot up 39 units, to 1,847 units by Monday afternoon.
Amid strong political tensions between President Alberto Fernandez and his vice president Cristina Fernandez Due to the economic situation, Economy Minister Martín Guzmán recently said that the goals committed to with the IMF were achieved.
The peso in the wholesale market depreciated 0.39%, to 116.75/116.76 per dollar, in a market that continued to be regulated by the BCRA through the purchase of some 110 million dollars, against the acquisitions of some 520 million last week, according to Reuters data.
The currency in the alternative segments fell to 209.8 units in the “counted with liquidation” (CCL) stock market, to 208.3 in the so-called “MEP dollar” and to 201.5 units in the marginal or “blue” market.
Coins and stock exchanges Latin America they retreated as a whole, amid a global wave of asset aversion that boosted the dollar, due to fears of a rapid slowdown in the world economy due to monetary tightening by central banks.