Author: Julia Owens

The dollar advanced 17 cents on Wednesday and was sitting, on average, at $ 44.06 in agencies and banks of the city ​​of Buenos Aires, as a consequence of the uncertainty generated by the primary, open, simultaneous and mandatory elections.

This is because unlike what happened in the previous round, the international market was stable.

Meanwhile, the wholesale dollar closed at $ 42.87, twenty-one cents above the end of Tuesday.

“The North American currency returned to operate very demanded in a wheel with intense activity in the markets of Forex futures. It is the third consecutive rise of the wholesale dollar that puts the price very close to touching again the $43 per unit,” detailed the analyst Financial Gustavo Quintana.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of the Republic validated a rise in Leliq rates of 10 basis points, ending at an average of 59.009% for a total awarded of $255.808 million. From this operation, a liquidity expansion of $125 million was generated.

In the first tender of the day, the BCRA validated seven-day Liquidity Letters at an average cut-off rate that stood at 58.993%, with an amount awarded of $198,321 million.

In the City of Buenos Aires, the slates of the main banking entities closed on average at $44.06 according to the usual survey carried out by iProfesional, according to the following:

– Galicia: $ 44.40

– Nation: $ 43.90

– ICBC: $ 44.30

– BBVA: $ 44.14

– Superveille: $ 44

– Santander: $ 44

In the informal segment, the blue dollar trades unchanged at $44.25 according to the survey of this medium in caves of the city ​​of Buenos Aires.

Argentina’s country risk rose 28 units and again exceeded 800 basis points due to political uncertainty. The indicator elaborated by JP Morgan reached 804 points, the maximum level since July 1, when it had reached 813.

The dollar advanced on Tuesday almost 40 cents and closed at $43.78 in agencies and banks of the City of Buenos Aires, thus prolonging the change in trend initiated at the beginning of the week, when it climbed just over 50 cents.

This phenomenon is repeated in the Single and Foreign Exchange Market, where the wholesale dollar closed at $42.46 for the purchase and $42.66 for the sale, that is to say, twenty-six cents above the values ​​recorded in the previous end.

Gustavo Quintana, of PR Corredores de Cambio, stressed that “the buying trend was maintained yesterday, with an active demand that drove a new advance in dollar prices.”

“The official activity in the futures markets softened the upward curve of the exchange rate in the wholesale segment, somewhat limiting the second consecutive rise in prices,” Quintana said.

Tuesday’s wheel seems a continuity of Monday’s, when, given a shortage of supply, the greenback rose 56 cents and recovered in a single wheel the cumulative fall of the last two weeks.

It was in tune with the wholesale segment, where the currency rose 80 cents to $ 42.40, in a wheel in which the Central Bank validated a new drop in the monetary policy rate, the lowest since March 11.

Among the factors that explain the sudden rise of Monday include the following: to a large extent a marked contraction in the level of supply of agro-exporters, and at the same time, the reappearance of the demand for coverage, amid a surplus of liquidity of pesos, along with the market perception of a “somewhat lagging” dollar price .

From ABC Mercado de Cambios they pointed out that the escalation registered in the MULC “reflects the lack of liquidity of the market, which with only $ 27 million traded on closing, the currency rose 40 cents” due to the shortage of agricultural supply that “there will be liquidated about $100 million.”

For his part, Quintana warned that “although a correction that at some point would temper an incipient exchange delay process was expected, it does not seem very desirable that the price update be carried out abruptly, a factor that sometimes generates some disturbance in the market.”

The US president, Donald Trump, expressed on Thursday his distrust of cryptocurrencies, which in his opinion are not real money, and warned Facebook and other groups that want to venture into them that they must comply with global financial rules.

“I am not a fan of cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” the president tweeted, insisting that those virtual currencies generated electronically, which guarantee great discretion and are virtually undetectable, “can facilitate illegal behavior.”

Cryptocurrencies are all the rage after the success of bitcoin and there is currently a large group of them. But the announcement on June 18 by Facebook that it plans to launch into the arena with Libra has sparked a shockwave among financial regulators worldwide.

With more than 2 billion users, the electronic currency that the main social network wants to launch in 2020 with a number of partners could alter the entire monetary ecosystem.

Trump warned Facebook “and other companies” that if they want to become banks they must respect the regulations both in the United States and in the rest of the world.

“We have only one currency in the United States … and it is called the US dollar,” he said.

The announced arrival of Libra and cryptocurrencies in general will be the subject of a report to be presented to the G7 countries at a meeting next week.

“I think it will be necessary to make a prudent and thorough assessment of the risks” that the Libra project entails, said the head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell, on Thursday before Congress.

According to Facebook, since the beginning of 2020 the “Libra” would allow millions of people without access to banks to integrate from their smartphones to the financial system.