The Merval can't find a bottom, it falls another 4% and the country risk rises a new step, to 742 points

On a bad day for global financial markets, Argentine assets are extending their negative trend. On the one hand, Argentine stocks are plummeting by almost 6% on Wall Street. On the other hand, the country risk is climbing a new level, to 742 points.

With this adverse climate , the Buenos Aires stock market has plummeted by almost 4% measured in dollars with cash settlement. Far from the rally of recent months, the Merval index has already lost almost 14% so far in February, with stocks accumulating falls of up to 20% this month, such as Comercial del Plata.

Donald Trump's arrival at the White House marks the beginning of a new global economic cycle and concerns about the impact of his measures are affecting the prices of financial assets. On Monday, the stock markets in the United States had closed with mixed results due to the official news. Palantir's stock plummeted by 10.5% due to the plans of the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, to cut the Pentagon budget; while Microsoft had fallen by 1% amid concerns about the reduction of spending on data centers. Both events dragged down the Nasdaq index, which on Tuesday also traded with a drop of 1.3%.

"The S&P 500 closed negative on six of the eight Fridays in 2025. On all these occasions, the index more than recovered from the falls in two rounds. But this Tuesday, it is unlikely that the pattern will continue; for that to happen, it would have to rise more than 2.2%, a movement of more than 2.75 deviations - something that has not happened since February 24," they indicated at the beginning of the session in Delphos.

"The last few days have been characterised by macro data that are contrary to the recent environment and which we believe will prevail in the near future. In particular, in the United States the CPI had an unexpected acceleration, and the services PMI showed a strong and also surprising fall. But the leading indicators point to a global acceleration, and the industrial indicators seem to indicate that the summer of the sector is coming," they detailed.

Within this framework, the Merval index is experiencing another negative round and has already lost more than 14% since the beginning of February. Only two stocks listed on the main board are showing gains: Telecom and Cablevisión Holding, companies that are up 2.4% and 6.6% respectively, driven by the news of the purchase of Telefónica's business in Argentina.

This unfavourable context also affects Argentine debt securities, which have fallen by up to 1% . This has led to the country risk level being above 740 points. The JP Morgan banking indicator has worsened by 20% since the beginning of February and although the City believes that bond prices are close to their "floor" zone, the prices are not improving.

“We believe that this is due to the fact that the market is still waiting for news about the agreement between Argentina and the IMF, which has not yet materialized. That is to say, despite Trump's displays of support for Milei over the weekend, which were symbolic but important, the market continues to prioritize whether or not firm news is materialized in order to continue evaluating how Argentina will be able to honor its long-term commitments, normalizing the economy, fundamentally in the exchange rate aspect, by removing the current controls,” said Juan Manuel Franco of Grupo SBS.