The Argentine peso currency has rapidly depreciated over the past few days and is expected to weaken even further, sustaining a precipitous drop in the Argentina country-specific exchange traded fund.
The Global X FTSE Argentina 20 ETF (NYSEArca: ARGT) is off almost 4% on volume that is more than triple its daily averaged Friday. ARGT has quickly dipped below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages over the past three days, falling 9.0% since the Tuesday, Jan 21 high.
The Argentine peso fell 12% Thursday after President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s cabinet signaled it would keeps its hands off the market, and was down as much as 16.5% over the past two days against the U.S. dollar, Bloomberg reports. [Tapering Bets Send EM Currencies Reeling]
The government is allowing the market to adjust prices after spending billions of U.S. dollars to buffer the economy. The country’s foreign reserves have declined at a $1.1 billion per month rate over the past year and now sits at a seven-year low of $29.3 billion.
“It wasn’t a devaluation caused by the state,” cabinet chief, Jorge Capitanich, said in a Wall Street Journal article. “For free-market lovers, the supply and demand of foreign currency expressed itself yesterday.”
Eurasia Group Ltd and JPMorgan Chase & Co.warned that the peso is likely to depreciate further without a definitive policy plan to cut spending or raise interest rates.