Argentina Markets: Merval & the Peso — July 13, 2026

01 The session in one read

Argentina’s stockmarket capped the week with a rally squeezed into a session that, strictly speaking, should not have moved much at all — Friday, July 10 was a bridge holiday for tourism, leaving the Buenos Aires exchange technically open but without settlement, which only lands today.

None of that stopped the Merval closing 2.43% higher, its best print in over a week, as the reform trade found fresh legs even with much of the country on a long weekend.

The gains split cleanly along sector lines: financials surged in New York, with Grupo Galicia, Banco Macro and Central Puerto ADRs all rising between 5.8% and 9%, while the two domestic names that actually traded on BYMA — YPF and Pampa Energía — both slipped.

Wall Street itself simply held firm, the S&P 500 up 0.42% to 7,575, doing little to explain a session that was overwhelmingly local.

02 The day’s numbers

The bold line is the Merval itself: a close near 3.28 million pesos, comfortably inside Friday’s 3,193,070–3,285,580 range and just shy of the day’s high, which tells you this was a grind into the close rather than a morning spike that faded.

The peso simply sat still — USD/ARS held at 1,488, a fraction under the top of its 52-week band, meaning the currency did none of the day’s work; this was purely an equity and credit story.

In dollar terms the picture is more sober: the ARGT proxy, the New York-listed way to own Argentina without currency risk, sits 7.3% below its own 52-week high even after Friday’s gain — a reminder that peso-term rallies don’t always translate one-for-one once converted.

03 Why it moved — Caputo’s debt plan keeps compressing country risk

The catalyst, as it has been most of this month, sat in the bond pits rather than the equity screen.

Sovereign dollar bonds extended their advance after Caputo’s 2026-2027 financing programme convinced investors Argentina can meet roughly eighteen months of foreign-currency maturities without raising net debt, the same plan that has driven country risk to its lowest since April 2018.

That credit re-rating always flows first to the banks, and Friday was no exception — Grupo Galicia, Banco Macro and Central Puerto ADRs jumped 5.8% to 9% in New York even as the domestic board itself barely traded.

Energy sat out the party: YPF fell 1.8% and Pampa Energía 0.5%, even as YPF’s own long-run story stayed constructive, its chief executive using the week to talk up an offshore Uruguay block he says could eventually rival Vaca Muerta — a reminder that this was rotation, not a verdict on the stock, and that holiday-thin liquidity likely exaggerated every percentage move.

04 The day’s movers

Grupo Galicia topped the tape on $11m of turnover, up 5.8%, the single clearest expression of the credit-into-equities transmission this month has been built around.

YPF and Pampa Energía were the only two names the scan flagged as domestic movers, both lower — a reminder that on a bridge holiday, breadth simply is not there to judge conviction.

MercadoLibre and the Brazil-tracking EWZ also featured among the day’s busiest names, but both are cross-listed instruments rather than domestic Argentine companies, so their moves say more about the US tape and the real than about BYMA.

05 The regional scoreboard

Brazil was the region’s other standout, the Ibovespa jumping 2.97% to 177,866.37 points, its best close since May, after June inflation data came in softer than markets expected.

The rest of the board is left blank here by design — Chile, Colombia and Mexico’s Friday closes were not independently verified for this report, and the live market board above carries every index’s closing level in full.

Two of Latin America’s most policy-sensitive markets rallied hardest on the same day, even though the drivers — Argentine credit compression and Brazilian disinflation — were entirely separate stories.

06 The technical picture

Friday’s close punches through the 3.15–3.2 million band that had capped the Merval for much of late June and early July, a level that sibling sessions had flagged repeatedly as the ceiling to clear.

The next reference point is the all-time high near 3,390,505, set in mid-June; Friday’s 3,280,224 leaves the index roughly 3% below that peak, the closest it has been in weeks.

On the currency, USD/ARS at 1,488 is pinned within half a percent of the top of its 1,273–1,492 band — not stress, but a level where any fresh dollar demand would show up quickly.

Bank breadth is the variable that decides which way this resolves: if today’s settlement session confirms Friday’s NY-led bank gains onshore, the reclaimed floor becomes a base for another run at the record; if the ADR rally proves a holiday-liquidity mirage, the index likely drifts back into the band it just escaped.

07 What to watch

• Sub-400 country risk: Whether JPMorgan’s EMBI+ spread cleanly breaks below 400bp, which would mark Argentina’s tightest credit spread since 2018.
• Merval vs the record: Whether today’s settlement session confirms Friday’s breakout above the 3.15–3.2 million band toward the June record near 3,390,505.
• Bank ADR follow-through: Whether onshore BYMA bank tickers catch up to the 5.8%-9% gains booked by Grupo Galicia, Banco Macro and Central Puerto ADRs in New York.
• The peso’s weak edge: USD/ARS sits within 0.3% of its 52-week high of 1,492; a clean break above would be a fresh statement on FX policy.

Background: Argentina’s Inflation Is Falling Monthly and Rising Annually.

Background: Argentina Paid 44% of Its Year’s Dollar Debt in a Single Day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did the Merval rise on what was technically a holiday?

July 10 was a non-working bridge holiday in Argentina, so BYMA traded without settlement, but gains in New York-listed bank ADRs (Grupo Galicia, Banco Macro, Central Puerto) fed through to the peso-denominated index, which still closed 2.43% higher.

What’s driving country risk lower?

Economy Minister Luis Caputo’s 2026-2027 financing plan, which lays out how Argentina covers roughly eighteen months of foreign-currency debt maturities without raising net borrowing, has compressed JPMorgan’s EMBI+ spread toward its lowest level since April 2018.

Why did YPF and Pampa Energía fall while banks rallied?

The session’s gains were concentrated in financials via New York ADRs; the only two domestic BYMA names the scan caught trading, YPF and Pampa, were both lower, consistent with a rotation into the reform-trade’s credit-sensitive corner rather than energy.

Are MercadoLibre and EWZ Argentine companies?

No — MercadoLibre trades on BYMA as a CEDEAR of its Nasdaq-primary listing, and EWZ is a US-listed ETF tracking Brazilian equities; both are cross-listed instruments whose moves reflect the US tape and currency, not domestic Argentine earnings.

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