Argentina’s Calm Peso Masks Debt-Day Strain And Market Unease

Argentina’s markets opened with a calm peso and a nervous balance sheet: officials are paying billions abroad while keeping the dollar market orderly.

Key Points

1. Official vs. blue stayed close: 1,485 vs. 1,510 pesos on the sell side, with Banco Nación at 1,435 buy and 1,485 sell.
2. The central bank lined up $3 billion in repo funding ahead of a $4.2–$4.3 billion payment.
3. Stocks rebounded, but dollar bonds fell and country risk rose to about 579 bps.

Banco Nación set the official dollar at 1,435/1,485 pesos, while the blue market traded near 1,490/1,510. MEP was near 1,494 and the CCL near 1,531, with the wholesale rate around 1,455/1,464.

On the ICE reference, USD/ARS hovered near 1,463. The blue premium over the official sell rate was roughly 1.7%. The central bank closed a $3 billion repo for 372 days at SOFR + 400 basis points (about 7.4%), after receiving roughly $4.4 billion of demand. While officials cast it as “a bridge” toward normal market access, our reporting has shown that repeated reliance on short-term repo lines has become a persistent feature of Argentina’s reserve management, masking underlying balance-of-payments pressure rather than resolving it.

The Treasury is due to pay roughly $4.2–$4.3 billion to bondholders today. Local reporting flagged a $62 million central-bank purchase in the official market and reserves near $44.781 billion.

To smooth January maturities, the Finance Ministry swapped dollar-linked bills: ARS 3.417 trillion ($633bn at 5.40) was placed, with 64.19% acceptance of the outstanding amount, after offers around ARS 3.678 trillion ($681bn).

The bills being retired would have matured January 16 for a little over ARS 6 trillion ($1.1tn), while the new paper matures January 30, a date that already carried a payment near ARS 600 billion ($111bn).

The S&P Merval rose 2.02% to about 3.07 million, led by Transener (+5.3%), Ternium (+4.8%), Transportadora de Gas del Sur (+4.5%), Cresud (+3.9%) and BBVA (+3.6%).

Traders also watched PDVSA’s talks with Washington about selling “volumes of oil,” which could pressure crude prices. Laggards were Aluar (-2.6%), BYMA (-1.2%) and Grupo Financiero Valores (-0.7%).

Dollar bonds slipped about 0.2% on average (some lines down up to 0.5%) on a coupon-cut technical, and the risk premium rose.

The dollar index held near 98.933 into U.S. payrolls data and a U.S. Supreme Court tariff-power decision.

Related coverage: Brazil’s Morning Call | U.S. Jobs Growth Slows But Productivity Surge Keeps Economy This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Argentina affairs and Latin American financial news.

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