Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Argentina: The peso forex hits 3.43

There has been a pretty severe move in the Argentine Peso from its recent baseline level ArgP$3.12 or so versus the dollar to the P$3.43 being printed this morning.

Argentina Peso Versus US Dollar, 12 month chart
Reports from the presidential palace are that the Kirchners' are hopping mad about this move and are trying to pin the blame on anyone, from the AFJP (bugbear of the month) to Grupo Rocca (bugbear of the week) to the "business cartel" to a more generalizaed "speculators" fist-in-the-air. I'm not joking, either and here's Critica on the whole charade. Apparently the fools think that the strange thing called 'the market' shouldn't be used to bet against the state.

My four year old daughter has a better concept of finances than the leader of Argentina (and his wife). What would Occam and his razor say to 1) Argentina announces it is nationalizing its pensions system and then 2) its currency suddenly loses 10% against the greenback? If I'm ever required to explain what's going on with the Argentine economy to los Kirchner I'd better remember to extract all words above two syllables. No wonder Martin Redrado is at the end of his tether with these clowns; explaining financial realities to the Ks must be like herding cats.