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Foreign investors reportedly liquidated assets in Mexico for a historic figure of around USD 7 billion during March, mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic fears that crosses the world and that Mexico has faced since the end of February.
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According to the specialized newspaper Financial Times, which published the information on Tuesday, investors they took their funds out of the country in search of “safer and more liquid instruments” in a moment of uncertainty like the current one.
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Analysts from BBVA’s specialized investment banking unit told the British media that the 166,000 million pesos, about USD 7,000 million, that withdrew from Mexico was the highest output since 1994, year in which Banco de México publishes this type of information.
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Furthermore, it is a movement showing that this trend has accelerated since the beginning of 2019. Most of these sales, BBVA noted, were in fixed-rate bonds., so that foreign holdings in the country fell to 55% of the total. In February, it was 58.5%, more than three percentage points.
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If you compare March 2019 and 2020, foreign holdings of short-term Treasury certificates practically fell by half, with 15.9% this year, compared to 34.6% in that month of the previous year.
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According to the experts consulted by the Financial Times, this type of outflows occurred in several emerging countries, from where investors extracted funds in the face of uncertainty by COVID-19 infections.
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For Claudia Ceja González, a rate and currency strategist at BBVA, this type of exit could continue if the authorities do not generate policies to change this matter. In particular, He referred to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has not presented a stimulus program for his refusal to acquire debt.
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And it is that the peso reached its historical minimum against the dollar during March: 25.8 units. However, eThis Tuesday already sells for 23.85 units, according to Citibanamex. The fall of the Mexican currency, one of the strongest in recent months, came at a time similar to that of the price of oil, which fell to its worst historical levels.
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However, the energy ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC +) reached a historic agreement for the cut in production of 9.7 million barrels, and which takes effect from May 1.
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Mexico will cut production by 100,000 barrels a day, and not the 400,000 barrels that the organization originally demanded to help stabilize crude prices, while The United States, Brazil and Canada will lower theirs, as a whole, by 3.7 million barrels per day.
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But outflows from the country could increase in these months, as it is expected that Moody downgrades Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the state production company, in the coming weeks. Last year, Fitch It lowered its rating due to the continued deterioration of the company’s independent credit.
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That means, according to experts, that Investors who are required to have only qualified debt investments will have to get rid of these interests.. “Analysts said many have already done so,” the British newspaper reported.
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