Argentina is reverting to type

The Argentine peso has been the worst-performing currency against the dollar this year, and more misery could be in store. Investors have been dumping the country's "century bond", whose launch in 2017 had seemingly heralded a new start under business-friendly president Mauricio Macri: the 100-year paper has fallen to 66 cents on the dollar, says Colby Smith for the Financial Times, implying a considerable risk of default.

A poll putting leftist firebrand and former leader Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner ahead of Macri has alerted markets to the risk that the president may lose his bid for re-election in October.

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Macri has responded to the crisis by imposing price controls of his own, says The Economist. "Such measures will never solve the real problem: never have, never will," as Miguel Acevedo, the head of the country's leading employers' association, points out. The fact that Macri has reverted to his predecessor's economic playbook and taken this backward step suggests that in Argentina "a populist is a liberal mugged by inflation".

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019.

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere.

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful.

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.