On Monday, following his victory in the Argentine presidential election on Sunday, Javier Milei’s state-owned oil firm YPF saw its New York-listed shares spike more than 40%. The stock hovered at $14.90, up 38.82% on that same day. The right-wing libertarian candidate secured his win by a wider margin than expected and has promised to revitalize the ailing Argentine economy, promoting the use of the US dollar domestically and mentioning potential sales of YPF and other state-controlled companies to improve public accounts.
Milei expressed his commitment to ending the “model of decadence” in a post-election speech, suggesting change is imminent. More Argentina-related equities, like Grupo Financiero Galicia, Banco Macro, and the Global X MSCI Argentina ETF, also saw gains as investors and markets closely watched the exchange rate between the peso and the dollar. Milei’s economic plan involves prioritizing the US currency over the local peso to help mitigate historic inflation.