Argentina's stock market and peso currency climbed on Wednesday after the central bank held a successful auction of its Lebac notes a day earlier, indicating the country had calmed investor jitters at least temporarily. Late on Tuesday, Argentina's central bank sold 620.93 billion pesos ($26 billion) of short-term Lebac securities at its monthly auction, compared with about 616 billion pesos' worth of securities that matured. That came after the central bank raised the interest rate on the security to about 40 percent, up from 26.3 percent previously.
In recent weeks, the Argentine peso has deteriorated rapidly, spurring the nation to seek a financing agreement from the International Monetary Fund. On Monday, the currency fell some 6 percent, hitting an all-time low. On Tuesday, however, the peso snapped a losing streak, closing up 3.73 percent after the central bank sold $791 million on the spot market. On Wednesday, the rally continued after the Lebac auction, with the peso up 0.84 percent at 23.9 to the dollar in midday trade and the benchmark Merval index up 1.44 percent.
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