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Daniel Popescu / ⧉ Pluralisk's avatar

Regarding the Argentina update, your timing on exiting and preparing for re-entry is truly insightful. It makes me wonder how you model thise cyclical market resets; is it more pattern recognition or a very deep analysis of current fundamentals that drives such precise calls?

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George Atuan, CFA's avatar

To be honest the timing this time was pure luck, not always it is so precise (in the cycle previous to that one I left lots of money on the table when I exited YPF too early as I explained in the SUPV article).

But I tend to enter when I start hearing the first couple of good news after a down cycle (so for example for the last cycle, inflation was already dropping for more than a couple of periods) and the market started recovering (in the last cycle I entered when the Argentine market was +100% up from when Milei started his administration).

I got out :

1. when the valuations were at its highest and comparable to developed countries.

2. Also, the sentiment to invest in Argentina was at its highest.

3. I heard from locals (I still have friends in Argentina I call from time to time) that Milei was losing support from the low-middle/middle class as it was getting hard getting to the end of the month and unemployment was increasing (later it was confirmed as unemployment in Q1 2025 was 7.9% vs 6.4% for Q4 2024)

So for this cycle I will be watching for similar indicators. Recovery in the merval and indicators such as unemployment.

Very likely I will miss the first run up.

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