CHART OF THE DAY: The Argentine Peso Completely Collapses
The Argentine peso fell 13% against the dollar today after the country devalued its currency the most in 12 years in order to preserve international reserves.
The exchange rate now stands at 1 dollar for 7.88 Argentine pesos.
The country also announced that it would limit Argentines to two internet purchases from abroad per year.
Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich said that the new measure was meant to protect local industry.
More likely, it is also another measure to control the flow of capital out of the country. Argentina's foreign reserves are incredibly low. After paying $900 million in debt the last week of December, government officials put foreign reserves at under $30 billion. The bank responded to this dip by injecting and additional $100 million.
There's more debt where all this came from. This week alone the country offered to hand $10 billion over to The Paris Club for debt dating back to its 2001 collapse.
Check out today's dollar-peso action in the chart below:
