Signs are mounting that Argentina is headed toward recession in the next few months, less than two years after emerging from the latest one, Bloomberg News reported. A severe drought and currency crisis shook Latin America’s third-largest economy just as President Mauricio Macri sought to consolidate its incipient recovery. Economic activity fell 2.7 percent in April, the largest monthly decline since Macri took office in December 2015. Growth also declined on an annual basis for the first time in 14 months, the nation’s statistics agency reported Tuesday.

Argentina’s central bank is getting a new chief after the monetary authority failed to stop the peso’s plunge despite obtaining the biggest loan in the history of the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported. Luis Caputo, previously the finance minister, will take over the post following Federico Sturzenegger’s surprise resignation. Investors need him to lay out a strategy to curb volatility in the currency, which has lost more than a quarter of its value since the end of April, including a selloff of more than 6 percent Thursday that left it at a record low.

Markets welcomed the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) $50 billion rescue stabilization package last week, which seems to be stabilizing the peso. But the financial umbrella will be costly, a Bloomberg View reported. Rightly or wrongly, Argentines blame the IMF for precipitating their country's worst economic crisis. In the eyes of many voters, the mere association will damage President Mauricio Macri’s standing.

If you are going to go, go big, and get on with it. This advice applies widely, if not universally. Certainly it fits economic interventions. Argentina and the IMF, thankfully, have followed it. The IMF’s financing deal for Argentina, a country facing a falling currency and brutal inflation, was expected to take about six weeks to agree; it took a month, the Financial Times reported. Speculation pegged the value of the package at $30bn or so; it came in at $50bn. The market’s initial response to the surprise has been positive. Argentine bonds rallied on Friday morning.

The International Monetary Fund came to Argentina’s rescue on Thursday with a standby arrangement worth $50bn over three years, far more than envisaged by markets which are expected to welcome the move. The loan is subject to approval from the IMF board, the Financial Times reported. Its size surprised local media which had speculated would be closer to $30bn. “I thought it was going to be big but this far exceeds expectations.

The International Monetary Fund moved on Friday to formally begin negotiations on a bailout of Argentina, without any objection from the Trump administration, The Wall Street Journal reported. The crisis in Argentina has prompted the U.S. to once again embrace the type of multilateral and global institutions that have often come under heavy criticism from the Trump White House. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde presented the program Friday in Washington to the IMF’s executive board, where the U.S.

Bond fund managers often scoff at the big racy bets of equity investors, preferring the sweet sensation of a steady, diversified stream of coupon payments being made on time, the Financial Times reported. Michael Hasenstab is not like most bond investors.

The pressure on the Argentine peso showed no sign of letting up on Friday, with the currency sinking to a new low even after the country bit the bullet and turned to the IMF for help in stabilising the economy, the Financial Times reported. The peso slumped 5.4 per cent to 24.00 in early trade, according to Thomson Reuters data. The country’s benchmark Merval stock market snapped a two-day winning streak to trade 2.8 per cent lower, while the country’s century bond slipped again to trade at just a little over 87 cents on the dollar.

A year ago, Argentina was the darling of global investors. So much so that, when it issued a pioneering 100-year bond, with a yield of just 7.9 per cent, investors gobbled it up — ignoring the fact that the country has defaulted eight times in the past 200 years, the Financial Times reported. Whoops! This week President Mauricio Macri asked the IMF for help, after the peso tumbled to record lows. And that century bond? After rising to 105 per cent of its face value late last year, it is now trading nearer to 85 per cent.

Argentina is seeking a “stand-by arrangement” with the International Monetary Fund, according to the government, signalling its willingness to sign up to one of the organisation’s traditional economic adjustment programmes — complete with potentially politically controversial conditions and oversight, the Financial Times reported. Nicolas Dujovne, Argentina’s Treasury minister, had an “introductory meeting” with the IMF’s Alejandro Werner on Wednesday to discuss how negotiations will proceed. Officials estimated they could take around six weeks.