Starts fifth consecutive week down for the dollar in Peru, by Moisés Otero

The trend that began on December 21 continues and the dollar enters a new week of decline in the Peruvian market in the midst of an unexpected reduction in interest rates in China and the expectation of earnings reports from large banks and corporations to despite being Monday a holiday in the United States.

At the end of today’s session the BCR reported the exchange rate reference (interbank market) at S/ 3,855, not less than S/ 3,872 last Friday, thus marking the beginning of the fifth consecutive week of strengthening of the nuevo sol against the US currency.

Today only US$74 million changed hands in the interbank market Peruvian, low volume but within expectations as it is a bank holiday (Martin Luther King Day) in the United States.

The first relevant news for the market It came from China with the announcement of the Bank of China and its surprise cut in its interest rates for the first time in two years. The adjustment, according to the Chinese bank’s own information and analysts, is mainly due to two signs of slowdown in the Asian giant’s economy.

In the first instance, the growth of the Chinese gross domestic product for the last quarter of 2021, which stood at 4%, higher than projected by specialists but lower than the growth of the third quarter, which would show a slower speed in the Chinese recovery.

In the background, the data on the performance of Chinese retail sales (‘retail’), which only grew 1.7%, is interpreted as a brake on the Chinese economy, which will close the year above the projected 6%, standing at 8.1%. .

At market American this week market is awaiting year-end earnings reports from big banks like Mellon, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley as well as flagship corporations like Procter and Gamble, Intel and American Airlines. Although favorable results are expected, operators are optimistic that these are above the consensus and analyst projections.

In the local market, it is expected that this week, which is typically when activities return to normal after the end of the year holidays, the political turbulence will have subsided and the economic actors will return to the path of recovery.

There is a kind of unannounced political truce where the government and the opposition finally seem to be putting the country’s interests first. To this is added a third wave of infections that seems to be being handled properly and a speed of vaccination that is moving towards an imminent return to class.

Peru leads the recovery levels in the region leveraged on metal prices, now it is time to consolidate so that the sun does not move away from the strengthened path of recent weeks.