How Milei’s Surprise Win in Argentina Defied the Market
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What are today’s market vitals and why are they important?
Today's number one thousand one hundred. That's how many chairs were recently stolen from restaurants in Madrid. The heist took place over two months and targeted the patios of 18 different restaurants. Damages are estimated at nearly $70,000, and authorities are calling it the lowest margin crime since Joker Part 2. Honey market bad. If money is evil, then that building is hell.
Show goes up! Sell, sell!
Welcome to Property Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is October 28th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices closed at record highs on hopes of a US-China trade deal, the SP end of the day above 6800 for the first time ever. Meanwhile, gold dipped below 4,000 and finally Qualcomm shares popped 11% after the company announced new AI chips that will compete with NVIDIA. Okay, what else is happening? Argentina President Javier Millet led his party to victory in Sunday's midterm elections. His party doubled their representation in Congress and won nearly 41% of the national vote. President Trump congratulated Millet on social media, saying, He's making us all look good. The peso surged 9% against the US dollar, its biggest one-day gain in over 20 years.
20 years, Argentinian stocks and bonds also rallied. This win should help Millet push through his economic agenda. Over his first two years in office, Millet has slashed spending, unified exchange rates, cut energy subsidies, and laid off tens of thousands of public sector workers. That will all likely continue because the recent $40 billion bailout from the US is tied to the condition that he. Makes further progress on those reforms. Still, Millet has his work cut out for him. Inflation, though down, remains above 130%. Unemployment is rising, and real wages have fallen over 20% since 2023. The election turnout was 68%, the lowest in a national election in decades. And even after the win, his party does lack a full majority.
Here to explain what this all means for Argentina, we are speaking with Oliver Stunkel, Associate Professor at FGV's School of International Relations in Brazil. Oliver, thank you very much for joining us on the show.
Thanks for having me.
So we want to hear about this election. Um, just at a very basic level. Walk us through the election results. What does this mean for Javier Millet and what does this mean for Argentina going forward?
So those were the midterms. Um half of uh the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate were up for uh voting and renewal. And it has been a surprisingly uh good result for uh Javier Millet, the self declared anarcho capitalist, uh, who's been in power for two years. And the elections were sort of a referendum on his. Uh policies. He's a libertarian, so his uh key uh argument has been that it's necessary to radically reduce public spending, to reduce inflation, to finally stabilize Argentina after decades of instability. And he did bring down inflation, however, the economy is still uh reeling from uh his policies of uh dramatically reducing public spending. So the economy is not growing, but he is saying that he still needs some time uh for the economy to finally recover, that this is the medicine which initially has a negative impact, uh, but which will eventually put Argentina's economy on a stable footing.
And the voters have, despite the negative short-term impacts, Given him a vote of confidence and said that basically signaled that they would like him to continue uh the liberalizing reforms. Over the next two years, he now has enough votes to override uh vetoes in the in Congress, uh, which were employed uh during the past years against his uh decrees when he tried to uh liberalize uh the economy. So I think we can expect him to continue uh like that for now. Now uh he still needs to deliver, so uh basically voters have given him a lifeline and we'll now see how this experiment will unfold.
Yeah, help us with the context there. I mean, from my understanding, Argentina's been in the news a lot recently. Uh we had this other election, this local election in Buenos Aires, which again, m us we Americans weren't very aware of what was happening.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What are today’s market vitals and why are they important?
0:00–6:00
2
How did Javier Millet’s party perform in Argentina’s mid‑term elections?
6:00–13:06
3
What does Oliver Stuenkel say the election results mean for Argentina’s economy?
13:06–20:48
4
Why is the latest U.S. CPI report a key indicator for investors?
20:48–25:39
5
How does Robert Armstrong interpret the CPI numbers and tariff effects?
25:39–30:32
Speakers
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