For decades, Argentina’s economic pendulum has whipsawed investors by swinging from one ideological extreme to another, as each new administration dismantled the framework built by its predecessor.
With next year’s election set to offer a referendum on President Javier Milei’s reformist agenda, some influential business leaders and opposition figures are discussing the possibility that those violent shifts are coming to an end – regardless of who prevails in the 2027 vote.
Several factors may defy Wall Street scepticism, where yields on Argentina’s bonds surpass its peers due to its history of defaults, voodoo economics and manipulated data. For now, polls show growing support for fiscal discipline and other market-oriented policies in a break from the past.
Executives and a segment of the dominant Peronist movement are noticing the tide shifting, and are working to build a political consensus around preserving Milei’s core economic reforms beyond his Presidency.
As a result, “whoever wins in 2027, the broad direction of Argentina’s economy shouldn’t change in a 180-degree turn,” said Marcelo García, Americas director at Horizon Engage. “That’s different from what’s happening in parts of Latin America – and from Argentina’s own history.”
Abrupt shifts from free-market reforms to state intervention and back again have inflicted heavy losses on investors. In 2019, the local benchmark S&P Merval stock index plunged 37 percent in a single day after Peronist Alberto Fernández won the presidential primary. More recently, Argentine stocks listed in New York fell as much as 24 percent after Milei’s coalition lost Buenos Aires Province’s legislative election last September, only to rally as much as 40 percent after the government’s decisive victory in October’s congressional midterms.
“Every election in Argentina appears to be so binary,” BlackRock emerging-markets strategist Pablo Goldberg told Bloomberg last month. “Until the swings of the past are gone and there is a more sustainable path forward, the market will continue to trade with a premium.”
While that premium is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, some investors and analysts point to signs indicating that shifts may grow less extreme.
“The political pendulum is narrowing for two reasons,” said Marcos Buscaglia, co-founder of Buenos Aires-based consultancy Alberdi Partners. “The worst of the economic adjustment is probably behind us, improving the government’s re-election prospects. And the opposition itself is less unified around a return to interventionist policies.”
Indeed, some of Argentina’s most influential business leaders have become increasingly involved in discussions about the country’s post-Milei future, promoting ideas such as fiscal balance, lower inflation and reserve accumulation.
Banco Macro Chairman Jorge Brito has held conversations with Peronist opposition strategists Emilio Monzó and Nicolás Massot, according to people familiar with the talks who asked not to be named discussing private matters. A spokesman acknowledged political leaders approached Brito about entering politics but denied any formal plans.
Former president Mauricio Macri has deepened cooperation with Milei by encouraging members of his PRO party to join the administration, while local media have reported similar conversations involving Techint Chairman Paolo Rocca. A spokeswoman for Rocca didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
And Argentina’s largest opposition movement – home to leftist figures such as Axel Kicillof and former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — is debating whether its next presidential candidate should embrace positions once considered taboo within Peronism. Those include fiscal discipline, lower money printing, respect for macroeconomic stability and financial commitments, and a more predictable policy framework.
Meanwhile, a Casa3 poll found that more than half of Argentines support most of the principles included in Milei’s 2024 agreement with provincial governments, including fiscal balance, tax cuts, labour reform and stronger protection of private property. Support for reducing welfare programmes climbed to 52 percent in 2025 from 32 percent in 2021.
Many Peronist governors also stand to benefit from the expansion of the Vaca Muerta shale patch and mining under Milei’s economic model, giving them little incentive to back a more radical agenda led by figures such as Kicillof.
“Peronism remains competitive,” said Casa3 Director Mora Jozami. “But ideas it strongly resisted just a few years ago – such as fiscal discipline, subsidy cuts and even some privatisations – have become much more socially accepted.”
Whether right or left, Argentines today prefer more polarising politicians over centrist figures, according to LatAm Pulse, a survey conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News. Milei himself is likely to polarise the election and seek to drown out centrist appeal by elevating the profile of a leftist candidate.
That same binary dynamic still defines politics across much of Latin America. Whether Argentina’s tentative drift away from it becomes a lasting shift remains an open question, given Peronist leaders have tacked toward the political centre before only to revert to more interventionist policies once back in power.
Still, signs are mounting that the risk of an abrupt political shift is becoming more contained.
AtlasIntel’s June survey placed Argentina’s political risk index at 41 on a scale where zero represents no political risk and 100 the highest possible level. The country now ranks below Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, with only Brazil posting lower political risk among the region’s largest economies.
If those trends hold, Argentina could achieve something it has historically struggled to sustain: policy continuity across administrations.
For Horizon’s García, that would fundamentally change how investors view the country.
“Next year could still bring noise for short-term positions such as bonds and equities,” he said. “But for long-term investment in the real economy, the risks should increasingly be at the margin.”
by Ignacio Olivera Doll & Manuela Tobias, Bloomberg
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