A pro-business Conservative has unexpectedly gained traction in the first round of the Argentinian presidential elections, bolstering Argentina’s markets and country-specific exchange traded fund.
The Global X MSCI Argentina ETF (NYSEArca: ARGT) jumped 5.3% Monday, breaking above its long-term, 200-day simple moving average on close to five-times its normal trading volume.
Argentinian equities rallied Monday after Mauricio Macri won enough votes on Sunday’s election to trigger the country’s first presidential runoff, reports Taos Turner for the Wall Street Journal.
The presidential race is based off a two-round, or runoff, voting system. If no candidate receives the required votes, or majority, in the first round then the two candidates with the most votes go through a second round. With almost 97% of the votes counted Monday, Macri had 34.3% of the votes, whereas major front runner Daniel Scioli of the populist ruling party had 36.8% of the vote – candidates had to have 40% of the vote and be 10 points ahead of the competition to win.
“A majority of Argentines were ready for a substantial change at the top — not just in personality, but ideology,” Daniel Freifeld, a partner at Callaway Capital Management, which holds Argentine bonds, told Bloomberg. “A Scioli victory would not have been bad, but a Macri victory means this has become an economic normalization trade, not just an ‘anybody but Cristina’ trade.”
Argentina’s government has kept a heavy hand on the economy, controlling the markets with an interventionist mindset, especially as the country deals with its ongoing debt problems. However, Macri has stated that the country needs to remove the capital controls and and reach a settlement with creditors to gain greater access into international bond markets since its default 14 years ago. [Crying for the Argentina ETF]