Argentina's Macrisis: Wholesale inflation soars to 74%
Data published yesterday by Argentina's National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) show that wholesale prices soared by 16% in September, and 74% from the same time last year.
This was the worst monthly figure for Argentina since a 20% increase in April 2002, at the depths of the country's last economic collapse.
Last month's reading was an abrupt jump from the 4.9% recorded in August. Wholesale prices rose nearly as much in September as in all of 2017, during which they rose 18.8% (an average of 1.5% a month).
Wholesale inflation in September - particularly a 24.2% jump in import prices - was propelled primarily by a soaring dollar, which rose an average of 28% against the peso last month.
The peso has lost around half its value since the carry-trade debt bubble - known as the "financial bicycle" - promoted by the Mauricio Macri administration collapsed in April.
The sale of short-term bills at rates averaging over 70% has helped calm currency markets during most of October; but near-record interest rates have also excacerbated the sharpest recession since the 2002 crisis.
Retail inflation has lagged behind wholesale inflation during most of the 2018 crisis.
Consumer prices rose 6.5% in September, and 40.5% from the same time last year - around twice the rate of wage increases.
The steep difference from the 74% at the wholesale level was absorbed by retailers already reeling from utility hikes averaging 1000%.
Real sales, according to the Argentine Medium Business Chamber (CAME), fell 9.2% in September compared to a year earlier and over 16% since Macri took office in 2015. Some 17,000 shops employing over 71,000 have closed since the current crisis began in April.
"We're closing": A bakery in the Pampas town of Chacabuco adapts Macri's 2015 campaign logo to their current situation.
A debt bubble fostered in 2016 and '17 popped in April, leaving the now severely indebted country in its worst crisis since a similar debt bubble collapsed in 2001.
