(MENAFN- The Rio Times) Argentina's currency market looked eerily calm on Friday while equities and bonds absorbed the latest shock to the country's rescue narrative.

The wholesale dollar hovered around 1,424 pesos, the Nación retail rate reached 1,450, and the blue dollar traded near 1,425 – an almost unprecedented 2% gap between official and street rates.

Financial dollars (MEP and CCL) clustered just above the band, reinforcing the sense of a tightly managed but, for now, credible regime.

The calm masked growing nerves about the size and timing of foreign support. After weeks of talk about a US-backed package of up to $20 billion, banks are now weighing a much smaller, short-term repo facility of roughly $4–5 billion.

That was enough to send the JP Morgan risk premium back above 650 basis points and spark a broad sell-off in local and New York-listed Argentine assets.

Economy minister Luis Caputo publicly denied that any $20 billion deal had ever been agreed, insisting that rumours were designed to sow confusion, but investors focused on the fact that hard numbers remain vague.




Argentina's Peso Band Holds As Rescue Jitters Hit Stocks Hard
On the equity side, the S&P Merval plunged 3.1% in thin holiday-affected trading, closing near 2.76 million points and erasing part of its post-election surge.

Technically, the daily chart now shows a cooling phase after October's vertical rally: prices have slipped back toward the 20- and 50-day moving averages, MACD has turned negative.

RSI has retreated from overbought territory, while the 4-hour chart sketches a sequence of lower highs that fits a short-term correction inside a still-bullish weekly trend.

Argentine names in New York fared even worse. Edenor's ADR dropped about 6.8%, followed by BBVA Argentina (-4.7%), Grupo Supervielle (-4.3%), Grupo Galicia (-3.5%) and Banco Macro (-3.2%).

The few winners underlined how selective global appetite has become: agricultural biotech group Bioceres gained roughly 4.5% and e-commerce giant Mercado Libre added about 2.8%.

With the dollar index grinding just above 100 and Wall Street rotating out of higher-risk names, Argentina is discovering the limits of hope alone.

Markets still appear willing to back a reformist experiment that curbs past excesses, but they are beginning to demand clearer, rules-based financing rather than optimistic headlines and improvisation.

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