Long-term investors bet on Argentina despite financial turbulence spreading fast.

Europe's largest digital bank chose Buenos Aires for its next big bet, and it did so precisely as Argentine markets endure their worst stretch in months: country risk brushed 580 basis points this week, sovereign bonds yield above 10% annually, and the S&P Merval fell to lows not seen since August. The arrival of Revolut, with 80 million global customers, in Argentina's financial system through the BCRA-authorized purchase of Banco Cetelem — a BNP Paribas subsidiary — is no minor development. It is the most concrete signal that long-term investor appetite for the local market persists even as short-term financial sentiment deteriorates rapidly.

That tension between strategic investment and financial turbulence defines the close of September in Argentina. On one side, the government signed in New York the so-called Andes-Atlantic Corridor, a financing agreement with the Trump administration that enables up to USD 7 billion in energy, mining, and transport infrastructure. Its centerpiece is Argentina LNG, the mega-project for liquefied natural gas exports being developed by YPF alongside Italy's Eni and the Emirati XRG, for which the U.S. Export-Import Bank submitted a financing proposal of up to USD 6 billion. Washington's backing has a precise geopolitical logic: disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz attributed to Iran and the Houthis cut Qatari and UAE exports by 35 billion cubic meters between March and June, revaluing Argentina as a reliable supplier far from the conflict. President Horacio Marín, whose statements from New York set the week's energy agenda, further warned that if Brent crude holds around USD 105 — the level at which it traded this week — gasoline prices will have to rise. Shell, Axion, and Puma have already applied hikes of between 2% and 5% at the pump; YPF, which holds 55% of the retail market, has yet to move.

Simultaneously, the province of San Juan closed its first international debt issuance since 1999: a nine-year bond under New York law for USD 600 million at a rate of 9.875%, with demand of USD 1.037 billion, nearly 1.7 times the amount placed. The success of the operation — achieved with sovereign risk around 570 basis points and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields at 5.20%, their highest level since 2006 — is itself remarkable. It also reveals the role mining plays in the province's present and future: the funds are earmarked for infrastructure supporting mining expansion, the same sector that has posted 64 consecutive months of year-on-year growth and, in the first seven months of 2026, notched six double-digit increases in seven months according to Indec's EMAE.

But that export boom is not reaching the bulk of the economy. On Thursday, Indec published a confluence of data the government would have preferred to receive separately. The Monthly Economic Activity Estimator fell 2.9% in July versus June — completely erasing June's slight improvement — and dropped 1.4% year-on-year, leaving the indicator at its lowest level since March. Eight of the 15 activity branches closed in the red: wholesale trade, retail, and repairs fell 5.1% year-on-year, manufacturing 4.6%, construction 3.3%. Minister Luis Caputo attributed part of the decline to "transitory shocks": reduced gas availability, rains and snowfall above historical averages, and fewer hours worked because of the football World Cup. Analysts were unconvinced. Justina Gedikian of Cohen Aliados Financieros noted the indicator now sits 4.1% below December's level, and several economists warn the third quarter could shape up as a "technical recession." Meanwhile, FIEL's manufacturing IPI accumulated a 1.2% decline in the first eight months of the year, with the automotive sector stringing together fourteen months of contraction.

The social picture offers no relief either. Poverty rose to 32.3% in the first half of 2026, affecting 15.56 million people — about two million more than at the end of last year. Extreme poverty climbed to 7.5%. Child poverty reaches 44.5% of those under 14. Caputo responded by comparing with the first half of 2024, when the index stood at 52.9%, an argument statistically valid but politically insufficient on the road to 2027. The Universidad Torcuato Di Tella's Inflation Expectations Survey, however, offered a bright spot: expectations fell from 35.7% to 29.8% in September, the lowest reading since the survey began.

The week also delivered relevant legislative outcomes. The Senate approved, with modifications, the reform of the BCRA Charter — with six-year terms for its authorities and a Senate absolute majority requirement for their appointment — which sends the bill back to the lower chamber. It also passed the reform to the Cold Zones regime, eliminating the automatic gas subsidy for 1.24 million households in 94 Buenos Aires province municipalities and 3.35 million users nationwide, rolling the scheme back to the original 2002 climate criterion. At the same time, Bloomberg reported that Milei's government admitted to the Trump administration that it lacks the votes to ratify the bilateral trade agreement signed in February, a complication adding political noise just as the government parades its credentials in New York.

On the financial front, the external factor explains much of the pressure. 10-year U.S. Treasury yields reached 5.20% and Argentine bonds, yielding as much as 12%, are caught in a flow dynamic that punishes emerging markets as funds seek refuge in northern-hemisphere assets. According to analysts, had Treasury rates held at early-year levels — around 4.10% — Argentine country risk would hover around 430 points. On Friday, the government must meet an USD 800 million maturity with the IMF, which it will cover with Treasury deposits at the BCRA, expecting to offset them later with the pending USD 1 billion disbursement contingent on approval of the program's third review. The Fund's technical mission is in Buenos Aires this week. The central issue under review by the agency's technicians is the net reserves target: the government needs to accumulate close to USD 8 billion before December to meet it, a target no prior program has hit without requesting a waiver.

What will be decided in the coming weeks: approval of the IMF's third review and the USD 1 billion disbursement; the final format of the hybrid and electric vehicle quota for 2027; YPF's decision on fuel price adjustments; the return of the BCRA bill to the lower chamber; and, above all, whether third-quarter activity data confirm or refute the technical-recession outlook analysts are already beginning to price in.