Argentina: International investors still wary

The 2001 Argentine debt crisis put a damper on foreign investment in that country, analysts say.

“Foreign investors are still in doubt about going to Argentina,” Coutino says. “[They] didn’t recover all the investments they had after the government declared the default.”

Nonetheless, Ideaglobal’s Bernal points to the Argentine peso (ARS) as a potentially good currency play.

“I would buy the Argentine peso,” he says. “It suffered from an impressive devaluation starting in 2002.” Currently trading at about 2.89, Bernal sees the potential for appreciation in the USD/ARS rate toward the 2.60 level. He sees this as a “mean-reversion” play, as the currency simply “got too weak.”