There is an old axiom in the red circle that academic economics textbooks insist on ignoring: money smells power long before the votes are counted. While the average citizen, in Rosario or Buenos Aires, continues counting pesos to make ends meet, the map of big capital is being redrawn with a speed that is frightening.
Those who move the big pieces do not look at the next quarter. They play the decade. Therefore, to understand Where is the business going in Argentina?we must raise our heads from the situation and look at a global board that has mutated: the old consensus of peaceful globalization is dead. What is coming is more austere socially, more armed militarily and more polarized politically. And how does that stick on the counter of a Santa Fe SME? Let’s go in parts.
Three ballot boxes in nine days
The calendar is a minefield. Brazil votes on October 25: Flavio Bolsonaro He gave the surprise in the first round (47.03% against 45.16% for Lula) and most polls put him ahead for the runoff. Israel votes on the 27thin what reads like a plebiscite on Netanyahu. and he The United States legislative elections arrive on November 3con Donald Trump risking that Congress does not tie his hands.
The key for the region is fine. A Bolsonaro president would bring ideological harmony with the Casa Rosada, but also a fierce rival in the fight for capital: a huge market, more predictable rules and the global liquidity that Argentina desperately needs. “A Trump with his hands tied in Congress takes away volatility from the global dollar,” a consultant who operates from Wall Street explained to me.
Europameanwhile, burn. Just look at the images from this weekend in France. Also revolts in Spain, Germany, Portugal and Belgium. He chose cannons over butter. The European Defense Agency estimates that the military spending in 2026 it will reach 2.4% of GDP: historical record. and that Europe Fortressdesperate for supply chains away from Russia and China, look at the Argentine underground (LNG from Vaca Muerta, lithium, copper) as a security asset.
Behind everything, Asia. China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia will continue to be the physical demand for resources until 2030. The West sets the alignments; East, billing.
The rockstar and the underground
This global turn had its scene in Rosario. Horacio Marín entered the Stock Exchange like a rockstar: more than 750 people in the room and a phrase that already runs through the halls, “YPF is Argentina on the stick“. But the juicy part was in the fine print. Marín detailed the reconversion of the refinery through Santa Fe Biointegrated in equal parts by YPF and Essential Energy: US$400 million to produce renewable fuels for aviation and transportation, with projected exports of US$500 million annually by 2030. The commercial agreement with TotalEnergies Trading It is the support to go out and look for money. And there is the next challenge: financing.
From the Stock Exchange hall, directly to Neuquén. Santa Fe brings 150 companies to Argentina Oil & Gas Expo Patagoniafrom October 19 to 22. The Table already brings together more than 400 heavy metalworking, machining and boilermaking firms that want to be suppliers. The Stock Exchange itself is preparing its journey of knowledge from November 2 to 5. Nobody wants to be left out of that party.
The fish tank
Not everything is an energetic epic. In Urbanistics 2026the maximum was to build a common front among all the actors in the sector. José Cachero, head of the Association of Housing Entrepreneurs, blamed the municipality and the province: he said that “he increased again” the fee charged by the Municipality for the exception to build more meters and more height, and pointed to the extra costs of EPE and Aguas for the extension of networks. Translation: expensive land and inaccessible housing held hostage by the state window.
The proposal generated reactions and discomfort at different levels of the State. And also in the UOCRAintervened today. This week there were meetings of builders with the local auditor because, in silence, an uncomfortable discussion has been going on for some time: how can it be that there are companies that, judging by their works, are doing very well and do not have employees? “There is no 931“, someone who knows the subject closely told me. There are two or three companies with a track record and several projects underway each.
On the other side, businessmen stand, an important part, especially those in public works: “Don’t hunt in the fish tank,” they say, because they assure that everyone there has their people in white. It is an internal fight, but it is already part of the intervention, beyond the union and the judicial referrals that reached former union leaders.
red light on the counter
Let’s go down to the floor. The Rosario Economic Observatory measured that 52% of merchants sold less in September than in August. Indec reported that four out of every ten machines are still stopped in the industry. And the UCA Economic Uncertainty Index reached its highest level of the year. “Balance sheets are no longer broken due to lack of billing, but because the margin has evaporated between rates and financial costs,” the owner of a regional metalworking company admitted to me.
The coldest thermometer is bankruptcy and bankruptcy.. This week the bankruptcy of Algodonera Avellaneda. And on Tuesday it’s up to Moolec Science: A meeting called for October 20 must vote on its voluntary liquidation and the appointment of Cassandra Ronaldson and Amiel Gottlieb, of Interpath, as liquidators. We anticipated it in the week, and we had already said it some time ago: it was coming.
There is, however, an escape valve: the capital market. The placement of the Rus Futuro trust was held on the Stock Exchange. Río Uruguay Seguros rented 16 properties in eight cities and raised almost US$8.9 million, over ten years, with a theoretical IRR of 8% and quarterly payments. The background data is conclusive: between January and September, smaller-scale emissions in A3 Markets went from 21 to 92 and from US$30 to US$220 million. While bank credit does not start, the market opens windows. A3 also reorganized its panel into four sectors: energy, real estate, agriculture and finance. It is no coincidence what they are.
Those who open, those who arrive
Margarita Louis-Dreyfus walked the pedestrian Córdoba. The president of Louis-Dreyfus Company, with a fortune estimated at US$5.6 billion and 20,000 employees (1,300 in Argentina), stopped by the Stock Exchange, met with its board of directors and toured its plants in Timbúes and General Lagos. She arrived in tights and sneakers, surrounded by boys, escorted by Juan José Blanchard, her boss for Latin America. The entity assures that it was a social approach. Could be. But whoever leads an agro-export empire does not walk the pedestrian walk out of nostalgia: he had already been there in July, when he met with Milei and announced an investment in Bahía Blanca.
Group 83 deserves its own paragraph. With the opening of The Milanese Club in Fishertonwithin the Aldea neighborhood, The group of Reinaldo Bacigalupo and Gonzalo García Fradua reached 27 locations. In a complex context, grow by doing the math carefully, and look further: García Fradua confirmed to me that In November they open another location in Miami, the fourth, with the weight of Messi as a partner, and which Funes is analyzing for next year.
The contrast is in the rest of the sector, which is experiencing a permanent change of hands, actors and consumption. OrdersNow It also had to adjust a little: many businesses managed to get people to return to the premises – “you pay the same and I leave,” agree the gastronomic experts consulted – that is why the sign of “same price as in the premises”, together with the battle of the hamburger restaurants that went to the other app, led to rearranging the chips.
On the same map: Lucciano’s opened in Oroño and Jujuy and already has another one in the pipeline about Pellegrini. In Parque España, Cristian Blodorn and Pedro Nazor go for a Bonafide franchisea tavern (El Ramal, in the former Charladero) and a healthy bar in a 1945 wagon. All looking at the river. And the river is also a port: as I announced last week in this column, Graciela Alabarce confirmed the tender for five hectares in El Mangrullo, with 230 meters of frontage on the Paraná, for services to ships and refrigerated warehouses. Be careful: road access needs municipal intervention.
On the automotive front, Lynk & Co inaugurated an official dealership with the Marseille group, at Eva Perón 4354, with plug-in hybrid SUVs (06, 01 and 08) and electric SUVs scheduled for 2027. The Chinese no longer knock on the door: they sat at the table. And there are at least five more Chinese firms that in recent weeks came to Rosario and Funes to analyze possible locations.
And tomorrow, at noon, The main authorities of Casa FOA arrive in Rosario. They will be in Midtown, the Tucumán and Richieri project, with a press conference. It is the first time that Casa FOA arrives in the city.
In short, big money does not wait for economists to agree or for statistics to confirm the trend. Brazil, Israel and the United States will vote in the next two weeks, and when capital moves on so many fronts at once, it is rarely looking at the next quarter. He is looking at 2030. The uncomfortable question is whether the SME here makes it to that board alive.
Source: www.rosario3.com
