(MENAFN- The Rio Times) Argentina opens Tuesday with a currency that looks unusually tidy on the surface and an equity market nursing a sharp hangover from its latest bout of optimism.

On the FX side, the Banco Nación retail dollar closed Monday around 1,415 pesos, with the wholesale rate just under 1,400 and the mid-market rate near 1,387.

The blue dollar hovered around 1,435, while financial quotes sat only slightly higher, with the MEP near 1,446 and the cash-with-settlement around 1,496.

The gap between official and blue is therefore barely 3–4% – a far cry from the triple-digit spreads of previous years – but it comes with a price: heavy intervention to keep the new FX band intact even as inflation still runs above 30% and reserves remain thin.

Globally, the dollar index is parked around 99.5 after a modest rise on Monday as traders reassessed the odds of early Fed rate cuts.



That means the peso's modest pullback – the wholesale rate touching its lowest level in a month – is driven far more by local positioning and uncertainty over how long President Javier Milei's team can defend the band than by a runaway greenback.

Equities told the same story of fading euphoria. The S&P Merval slid about 2.2% to 2.93 million points, breaking back below the symbolic 2,000-point line in dollar terms after a spectacular October–early November surge.

Local media highlighted broad-based selling, with Grupo Supervielle, Edenor and Banco Macro down between 41⁄2% and 51⁄2% as foreign-held financials bore the brunt of profit-taking.

On the upside, only a handful of infrastructure names managed gains: Transportadora de Gas del Sur jumped about 4%, Transener rose just over 2%, and reports flagged Cresud and IRSA with smaller advances.

Abroad, the Global X MSCI Argentina ETF slipped to roughly $90, another sign that foreigners are trimming exposure rather than piling into the story.


Markets Press for Credible Reforms as USD/ARS Uptrend Slows
Technically, USD/ARS daily charts still show a clear uptrend, with prices above a rising 200-day average but momentum indicators rolling over as November's candles flatten.

On the four-hour chart, the pair is oversold after a grind down from the 1,400 area toward the mid-1,380s, consistent with a short-term correction inside a still-bullish medium-term move.

Taken together, the narrow FX gap, softer stocks and cautious ETF flows point to a market signaling exactly what it wants from Buenos Aires: credible, market-friendly reforms that reduce the need for interventionist bands and ad-hoc controls, not a return to heavy-handed macro management.

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