World’s Worst Currency Headed Even Lower, Top Forecaster Says

Argentina’s peso, the world’s weakest currency for the past two years, has nowhere to go but down as the nation struggles to rein in runaway consumer price increases, according to the currency’s most accurate forecaster in 2019’s fourth quarter.

“We see the peso at some point depreciating and catching up with a persistently high inflation regime,” said Gabriel Gersztein, the Sao Paulo-based head of global emerging-markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA.

The peso has held steady just below 60 per dollar since the government resorted to capital controls in August, in the wake of an unexpected primary victory by President Alberto Fernandez that sent the currency into a tailspin. While Gersztein expects capital controls will stay put, he’s betting that the government would eventually allow the spot peso to weaken to maintain constant the difference with the so-called blue-chip swap rate, which currently values the currency at 80.4 per dollar.