Overview
- The Central Bank reported a $596 million daily increase in gross reserves to $43.610 billion, driven by multilateral inflows, gold revaluation and currency moves, with a $1.197 billion gain over the short Christmas week.
- The Central Bank introduced a preannounced program to buy foreign currency within the exchange bands, initially capped at up to 5% of each day’s traded volume.
- Economy Minister Luis Caputo said the Treasury purchased nearly $900 million outside the official market to help meet the January 9 debt maturity of about $4.2 billion.
- The dollar blue rose by about $25 to roughly $1,530, the CCL traded near $1,527 with a 5.1% gap to the official rate, the MEP hovered around $1,486 with a 2.3% gap, and Banco Nación kept the retail dollar at $1,475.
- Despite the gross-record headline, estimates under the IMF methodology put net reserves near negative $15.755 billion and recent BCRA data showed November’s current account deficit and the lowest “dólar ahorro” purchases since the clamp easing.