The recent election in Argentina has resulted in a surge in the stock market, with shares of state-owned oil firm YPF seeing a massive increase of 40% following the victory of presidential candidate Javier Milei. During his campaign, Milei had expressed a desire to privatize YPF and reform the Argentine economy.
On Monday after his win, YPF’s New York-listed shares spiked more than 40%, reaching $14.90, up 38.82% on that same day. Milei, a right-wing libertarian candidate, secured his victory by a wider margin than expected and has promised to revitalize the ailing Argentine economy. He plans to promote the use of the US dollar domestically and mentioned potential sales of YPF and other state-controlled companies to improve public accounts.
Moving forward, investors and markets will be closely watching the exchange rate between the peso and the dollar as Milei’s economic plan involves prioritizing the US currency over the local peso to help mitigate historic inflation. Other equities such as Grupo Financiero Galicia, Banco Macro, and Global X MSCI Argentina ETF also saw gains in post-election trading.