The news rumbled loudly on Sunday: the Government, which had boasted of releasing the "dollar stocks" established by Cristina Kirchner in record time in 2011, ended up adopting a "light" variant of the measure and launched restrictions on the foreign exchange market. .In times of fintech and digital banks, this new version PRO version forces you to review an almost forgotten foreign exchange dictionary. And just as the "Blue" resurfaced from its ashes, so did the "rulo dollar," which some investors took advantage of on Monday.
Appealing to Argentine talent against the crisis, they resorted to this modality to sell up to $ 4 above the spot price (that of the banks), that is, a difference of 7%. And win even in times of currency stampede.
It was not, however, the norm among less experienced savers: in the online exchange houses they say that although there was a lot of traffic due to inquiries, the operations did not skyrocket.
It is that the spread - as it is called in the financial jargon at the distance between the selling and buying tips - became so wide due to the lack of reference on the true price of the currency that many preferred to wait.Make the loop
The measures adopted by the Government generated many "disarbitrations", as it is said in the jargon to the distortions in the prices of the American currency that someone always knows how to take advantage.As it happened before with the stocks, new ways of taking refuge in green banknotes appear, crawling the restrictions and even at more convenient prices and in a legal way.
"We saw a lot of dollar MEP (Electronic Payment Market), which is a way to dollarize via bonds in the stock market. You bought at a exchange and then you sold dollar MEP and make a profit of $ 4," they reveal in InvertirOnline.
The operation can be simplified as follows:
- The dollar was bought at $ 60 in a home banking
- With these tickets, bonds were acquired through an online platform to invest in the Exchange
- They were sold immediately, on the same platform
- The difference is that the MEP or "dollar exchange" quote, which was quoted at $ 64, was used
- Green tickets are bought again
"For the big investors, the difference is bigger because they have smaller commissions. It is necessary to take into account the same as both in the original decree and in the statement of the Central Bank it was warned that the agency could establish possible restrictions to regulate the operation of bonds, "warns the manager.
Meanwhile, economist Gabriel Caamaño, head of Consultant Ledesma, helps to understand this operation that, in principle, may seem complex. Also remember that they are the classic side effects of the introduction of a change control."When you segment the market, natural persons on the one hand and legal persons on the other, with limits of access to the purchase of different dollars, prices disarbit," he begins.
And he specifies: "Companies are going to go to the MEP dollar in search of currencies that they cannot acquire otherwise. The other alternative, the one with liquidation or 'liqui' was not a reference on Monday because it did not operate due to the holiday in the United States ".
The difference is that in this last operation the bonds are credited directly to an account abroad and do not remain in the local market, as is the case with the "dollar".
"Ergo, there is the possibility of arbitrating for those who play in the two markets, which are natural persons," continues Caamaño, who reveals: "But you do not keep the bonds, you sell them to make dollars again and there you end up make the loop, getting a better price than the one you got at the beginning. That's why they call it a dollar in the jargon. "
Regarding the issue of spread, Caamaño summarizes it this way: "Operators increase it to buy cheap and sell expensive because they need to cover themselves against abrupt market movements."Spread is uncertainty
Over the weekend, digital banks and online exchange houses were "off-side" with respect to their traditional competitors that only operate on business days: the lack of a "real" dollar price.
In TiendaDólar, for example, they tell iProUP that before the opening of the market on Monday "the tips were very open". And they complete: "We also didn't have a clear reference of what the currency price was and no company wants to go to loss."At the same time, the client does not know what to do before that gap. "The user happens to be disoriented and prefers not to buy because he does not know if he is paying expensive or cheap," they admit.
"Of course, the spread is a mechanism to obtain profitability, but when it is extended to reach these levels it is not a question of the entities that want to profit, but a true indicator of the prevailing uncertainty," they explain in TiendaDólar.
"There was a distance of six to eight pesos between the selling point and the buyer. The market was so bewildered that it would not surprise us that on Monday the dollar was more expensive in a fintech than in a bank," they admit.
Anyway, as the president of the Central Bank, Guido Sandleris, said, purchases for more than $ 10,000 per month represent only 2% of the total, the equivalent of some 26,000 people.
"In principle, this would indicate that the stocks do not bother many, although it is also true that there is no excess savings to buy," they say. Anyway, although the universe reached is limited, the signal generates deep anxiety, as is logical given the recent past.
"In the business world it is something else, there the restriction is much tougher to the point that in order to avoid legal problems we decided to directly block the operations of legal persons", they emphasize from Tiendólar.Restrictions on companies have, of course, the ability to have a much more relevant recessive effect on the economy.
"I wonder how they are going to do, for example, if they have sales in pesos and need to save to buy products in dollars later. For a SME, moving in the futures market or looking for hedge is not so easy," they reflect.
"As for the spread, in our case the tips were very tight - just 55 cents - but as the wheel progressed it was over $ 2, because you never know what can happen until the next day and want to cover you," said José Bano, InvertirOnline research manager.Traffic but for inquiries
For the InvertirOnline analyst, Monday's day was far from the signs of panic that some expected.
"We received many inquiries about the measures. That increased traffic but not too much transactions. People came in to check the price for example," Bano tells iProUP.
"And it helped the fact that the market opened down. The dollar ended up falling 6% and it was a very good day at the stock market level. The reading would seem to be that the market put a token in the speech of the officials that it was about unfortunate measures. They thought it was necessary to avoid a greater evil, "he interprets.
The wholesale ticket fell to $ 56, while in the screens of the Buenos Aires microcenter it ended at $ 58.41, in a wheel in which in addition the Buenos Aires stock market climbed 6%. But the operators warned that the holiday in the United States for Labor Day determined, as always happens, that a very low negotiated volume was recorded and that the real test of fire would arrive on Tuesday.The average rate of the Leliq, equivalent to the monetary policy rate was 85,275%, while the total amount awarded was $ 246,623 million.
For its part, the "blue" promises to gain prominence again. The gap with the official price exceeds $ 5 in the average of the caves that still operate in the City of Buenos Aires. In the informal market, the parallel dollar advanced 50 cents to $ 63.50.
Importantly, the Government restricted the purchase of US currency and money transfers abroad, and also forced exporters to liquidate the currencies in the local market within a maximum of 5 business days after collection or 180 days after boarding permission. In turn, it prevented banks from turning dollars abroad without prior authorization.
Any Argentine who has experienced a crisis knows it: when uncertainty reigns and nobody knows very well where it stands, it is best to cover itself. Or make the "curl".