MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Macri anticipates that Argentina's inflation will accelerate to 3% in August; country risk reaches 1.990 points
“We were going to be at about 1.8% inflation. It's now going to be 3-something in August,” Macri announced to a group of farmers Argentine President Mauricio Macri said that monthly inflation would accelerate to 3% in August following a slump in the peso, as the central bank intervened heavily in the market on Tuesday to prop up the local currency.
The peso lost 18% of its value in a week after leftist opposition presidential candidate Alberto Fernandez netted a 15-point lead in an Aug. 11 primary election, as investors reassessed the prospects of business friendly Macri retaining power.
On Tuesday, Macri told an agricultural conference that inflation - which was running at a monthly rate of 2.2 percent in July - would tick up to slightly over 3 percent. “We were going to be at about 1.8% inflation. It's now going to be 3-something in August,” Macri said.
Argentina's 12-month inflation is running at 54.4%, according to the national statistics agency. Inflation had been decelerating for the fourth consecutive month in July after reaching a peak of 4.7% in March.
By Tuesday afternoon, the peso had weakened 0.65% to 55.67 per dollar, traders said.
The local Merval stock index Merval fell by 3.4% on Tuesday.
Given the political uncertainty Argentina's country risk again ballooned and reached a new record in fourteen years.
The JP Morgan index jumped 9.6% on Tuesday to 1.990 points, the highest since June 2005. Sovereign bonds also plunged 14%, with prospects of further decline.
Top Comments
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Read all commentsCFK lied about the inflation rate and other economic statistics. Indec figures were a fiction.
Aug 29th, 2019 - 05:44 pm +1So far, the FF ticket has shown that the market reaction will be a collapse in the peso etc.
Macri has suddenly decided to tell the truth and let the Argentines know what sort of inflation they might expect?
Aug 28th, 2019 - 07:33 pm -2That’s surprising, especially after insisting, for the last four years, that paradise was just around the corner.
Instead, Macri and his accomplices have achieved the fastest and deepest destruction of the economy that Argentina has known through history, bringing the country to a technical default.
Thus Argentina’s wealthy class has once more shown its absolute inability to lead the country through a path of growth.
Their priority was to destroy Peronism. Ironically, their selfishness and greed fueled the overwhelming victory of the FF ticket on August 11.
It won’t be easy, but the FF ticket has shown so far that they may revert the Macrist downward spiral.
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