Argentina's National Securities Commission (Comisión Nacional de Valores) has introduced a measure preventing market participants from using dollars obtained through MEP or CCL operations to buy bonds for 15 days.

Interpreted as a tightening of currency controls, the measures seek to put a stop to certain kinds of arbitrage deals that involve trading sovereign bonds and bills back and forth between the dollar and the peso. The new restrictions were published in the official bulletin today.

Today's Resolution 962/2023 states that market participants who buy dollars through MEP and CCL operations cannot use them to buy other sovereign bonds or bills for 15 days.

"[The resolution] doesn't change anything in the day-to-day operations of 99% of those who do MEP and CCL," CNV President Sebastián Negri tweeted on Tuesday night. "What it does […] is avoid arbitrages from price differences between public titles and other instruments, as we have been warning over the past few days, distorting the market."