Argentina

Argentina's annual inflation rate ended 2023 at 211.4%, the highest since the early 1990s, official data showed on Thursday, propeling the embattled South American country's year rise in prices above Venezuela for the first time in decades, Reuters reported. Argentina's monthly inflation also hit 25.5% in December, below forecasts, after a sharp devaluation of the local peso by the new government of libertarian President Javier Milei, who came into office last month pledging to fix the economic crisis. The inflation data, the first involving a period since Milei took office on Dec.

Argentina's international dollar bonds rose on Thursday after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff and the government reached an agreement that should unlock some $4.7 billion from the country's embattled loan program with the fund, Reuters reported. The agreement removes in the short-term the risk of Argentina falling behind on IMF repayments. "Getting the program back on track is positive," Goldman Sachs analyst Sergio Armella wrote in a note, adding the program had been "derailed" last year when the previous government missed economic targets set out in the program.

Argentina's monthly inflation rate likely soared to 28% in December, which would be the highest since early 1990, driven by a sharp devaluation of the peso currency last month by the new government of libertarian President Javier Milei, Reuters reported. The median forecast from 20 local and foreign analysts polled by Reuters underscores the challenge facing the South American grains giant, with annual inflation set to top 200% for the year, one of the highest rates in the world.

Argentina is set to make a near $1 billion payment to foreign bondholders this week while the government of President Javier Milei continues talks with the International Monetary Fund as he seeks to restore investor confidence in the serial-defaulting nation, Bloomberg News reported. Interest on several hard-currency bonds comes due Tuesday, marking a major test for Milei just a month after he took office promising to overhaul South America’s second-largest economy.

Argentine President Javier Milei is proposing a local debt swap that could top $71 billion, aiming to stabilize the country’s finances by pushing off maturities and reducing the deficit to zero, Bloomberg News reported. Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Finance Secretary Pablo Quirno told representatives of local and foreign banks operating in Argentina that they plan to issue new peso bonds in February to swap for the 2024 maturities, according to four people with direct knowledge of the meeting that took place Thursday afternoon.

Argentina's inflation likely hovered around 30% in December, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said on Wednesday, when asked by a reporter about studies showing monthly inflation reaching nearly that level, Reuters reported. "We still don't have the official data, but we understand that the figure was around the one you are referring to," Adorni told the reporter during a press conference. If confirmed, that would take annual inflation in the South American country to over 200% in 2023, the highest in more than three decades. The official figure will only be released on Jan.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei is considering issuing a perpetual bond to pay a $16 billion lawsuit award stemming from the nationalization of state-run energy company YPF, Bloomberg News reported. Swinging between political jabs and policy intentions, Milei suggested that the government would issue the bond without a fixed maturity while charging Argentines the “Kicillof tax,” named after Buenos Aires Governor Axel Kicillof who spearheaded efforts to nationalize YPF in 2012.

Argentina’s central bank changed its benchmark tool for monetary policy Monday, replacing four-week notes with one-day transactions in a bid to lower borrowing costs, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary authority will no longer auction its 28-day Leliq notes, which until now were used to determine its policy rate. Instead, the 1-day repo notes that currently pay an interest rate of 100% will serve as the bank’s new policy benchmark. Monday’s move aims to free up pesos for Argentine banks and strengthen demand for treasury notes.

Argentina’s radical, anarcho-capitalist President Javier Milei may turn out to be pretty conventional. That comes with good and bad news for investors, the Wall Street Journal reported. Late on Tuesday, the country’s new government announced its first set of economic measures since Milei was sworn in. Economy Minister Luis Caputo said the peso’s official exchange rate against the U.S. dollar would be roughly halved and that public spending would be drastically reduced by cutting energy and transportation subsidies, canceling public works and reducing transfers to provinces.