{
  "@context": "https://frontierpicks.com/schemas/dossier.v1.json",
  "ticker": "BMA",
  "name": "Banco Macro S.A.",
  "url": "https://frontierpicks.com/dossiers/BMA/",
  "json_url": "https://frontierpicks.com/dossiers/BMA.json",
  "status": "DORMANT",
  "current_conviction": "LOW",
  "graded_conviction": null,
  "archetype": {
    "code": "a1",
    "n": 1
  },
  "current_thesis": "Credit-recovery leg broke on the company's own numbers at the 2026-08-19 Q2 print: NPLs 6.25% (from 5.40%), coverage 95.39% (from 109.8%), FY cost-of-risk guide raised to 6.5–7% and real loan growth cut to 2–5% from ~20%. ADR closed $72.84 on 2026-08-21, RSI(14) 9.7, three-month change now −3.1%; country risk 517bp.",
  "invalidation_trigger": "A weekly close below $70 confirms the breakdown extends past the August capitulation and leaves no reference above the spring range; secondarily, an INDEC August CPI at or above 2.1% MoM at the ~2026-09-11 release with core above 1.8% takes the disinflation leg down alongside the already-broken credit leg.",
  "catalyst_date": "2026-09-11",
  "outcome": "OPEN",
  "outcome_date": null,
  "invalidation_fired": null,
  "themes": [
    "emerging-markets",
    "biofuels-low-carbon"
  ],
  "tags": [],
  "sources": [],
  "notes": [
    "ADR carries peso translation risk on top of equity risk: USD/ARS 1,497 on 2026-08-20, just under the 1,500 managed-band ceiling.",
    "Trades as one exposure with GGAL, BBAR; ARGT is the index proxy. Dispersion inside the group has been minimal.",
    "Track INDEC CPI month-on-month, not year-on-year — the YoY headline is dominated by base effects.",
    "Q2 EPS differs by vendor: Benzinga recorded $2.17 vs $1.59 est.; an Investing.com transcript recap carried $1.92 vs $1.46. Check the ADR EPS convention before comparing.",
    "Q2 2026 includes a Ps.21.9B restructuring charge, so headline (Ps.206.8B) and adjusted (Ps.221B) net income diverge.",
    "Dividend is not the thesis: the third installment went to holders of record 2026-07-06 and no further distribution has been declared."
  ],
  "body_markdown": "\nΩ# BMA — Banco Macro S.A.\n\n## Current Thesis\nThe fundamental leg of this story was tested on 2026-08-19 and failed on its own numbers. Banco Macro released Q2 2026 a week earlier than the 2026-08-26 date the calendar had carried, and the asset-quality lines moved the wrong way on every metric that mattered: the non-performing ratio rose to 6.25% from 5.40% in Q1, and total coverage fell to 95.39% from 109.8%. Coverage under 100% and blended NPLs above 5.40% were the two conditions flagged in advance as the fundamental break. Both printed.\n\nGuidance did the rest. On the 2026-08-20 call management moved full-year cost of risk to 6.5–7%, above the 5.5–6% band guided on 2026-05-28, and cut expected real loan growth to 2–5% from the roughly 20% real frame carried into the year. Consumer NPLs went to 8.4% from 6.92%. Total financing of Ps.11.69 trillion was up 3% sequentially but down 5% year over year, and deposits of Ps.14.74 trillion slipped 1% quarter over quarter. The re-leveraging premise — own the interior-province retail and SME lender because private credit is about to compound off a low base — was withdrawn by the company that was supposed to deliver it.\n\nEarnings themselves were not the problem. Net income of Ps.206.8 billion rose 39% sequentially and 4% year over year; excluding a Ps.21.9 billion restructuring charge, adjusted net income was Ps.221 billion with annualised ROAE of 14.3% and ROAA of 3.5%. Benzinga recorded EPS of $2.17 against a $1.59 estimate with revenue of $733.921M versus $864.780M expected. The tape ignored it. The ADR closed 2026-08-21 at $72.84 on the adjusted daily series, 28.1% below the $101.37 52-week high, with RSI(14) at 9.7 and a three-month price change of −3.1%. Three months ago that figure was positive double digits.\n\n**The narrative is dead.** The dating is specific. The $78 shelf that defined the post-midterm consolidation broke on the 2026-08-14 close at $77.61. The 2026-08-19 report converted a price-structure break into a fundamental one by raising provisioning guidance and removing the growth frame. By the 2026-08-21 close the entire summer advance was gone. A different case may eventually be built on this balance sheet — 28% Tier 1 under Basel III and Ps.4.1 trillion of excess capital are not small — but that would be a recapitalisation-and-liquidation-value story, a separate leg from the disinflation-and-credit-growth one being graded here.\n\n## Bull Case\n- **Capital is not the issue.** Basel III capital adequacy and Tier 1 both at 28% with Ps.4.1 trillion of excess capital, and liquid assets equal to 74% of total deposits (Q2 release, 2026-08-19). A bank with that liquidity profile absorbs a consumer credit cycle rather than being resolved by one.\n- **Core profitability held through the deterioration.** Net income Ps.206.8B, +39% QoQ; adjusted for the Ps.21.9B restructuring charge, Ps.221B at 14.3% ROAE (2026-08-19). The provisioning build did not push the quarter to a loss.\n- **Stage 3 exposure is over-reserved.** Stage 3 loans were 4.1% of total financing with 148.8% coverage (2026-08-19). The headline coverage decline is partly mix, and management guided Stage 3 NPLs to stay below 4% with Stage 3 coverage near 100% at year-end.\n- **The macro plumbing has not cracked.** BCRA reserves reached US$50 billion on gold revaluation with continued dollar purchases, per the 2026-08-20 Rio Times wrap. The peso at 1,497 is weak within the managed band, not through it.\n- **Disinflation is a level shift, not a reversal, so far.** Cumulative 2026 CPI through July was 19.3%, against monthly prints of 3.4% in March and 2.6% in April (INDEC, released 2026-08-13). One re-acceleration to 2.1% MoM does not restore the old regime.\n- **Positioning is stretched to an extreme.** RSI(14) 9.7 at the 2026-08-21 close, versus 21.4 a week earlier.\n\n## Bear Case\n- **Coverage went below 100% and the NPL ratio went above the prior peak.** 6.25% NPL and 95.39% coverage at Q2 (2026-08-19) against 5.40% and 109.8% at Q1 (2026-05-28 call). The peer-best cushion that justified the premium is thinner.\n- **The February-peak claim is dead.** Management said on 2026-05-28 that February marked the top in consumer NPLs at 6.92%. Q2 consumer NPLs printed 8.4%.\n- **Provisioning guidance was raised ** Full-year cost of risk moved to 6.5–7% from 5.5–6%, with total NPLs guided to 5.5–6% and a coverage floor of 90% (2026-08-20 call). Each of those is a downgrade of the same number given three months earlier.\n- **The growth thesis was formally cut.** Real loan growth guidance to 2–5% for 2026 against roughly 20% previously; total financing −5% YoY. This follows First Capital Group's 2026-08-06 reading of BCRA data showing real private peso lending −1.0% MoM and −1.3% YoY in July, with personal loans in a tenth consecutive real monthly decline.\n- **Funding stopped growing.** Deposits Ps.14.74 trillion, −1% QoQ (2026-08-19).\n- **Sovereign spread is widening into it.** Country risk 517bp on 2026-08-20 versus 479–480bp on 2026-08-15 — the transmission channel into Argentine bank multiples runs directly through this number.\n- **Household delinquency was already at a record before the print.** 12.7% in June 2026 (BCRA data via First Capital Group).\n\n## Setup & Price Structure\nThe reference close is $72.84 on 2026-08-21, 28.1% under the $101.37 52-week high. Two structural levels have gone: the $78 shelf lost on 2026-08-14 at $77.61, and the three-month advance, which is now a 3.1% decline. There is no intact base beneath the current price on the visible series; the next reference is the spring range, which the summer rally left behind.\n\nRSI(14) at 9.7 is a capitulation-grade reading and is not, by itself, a thesis. It says the selling has been continuous and one-directional through the print — the shares fell from $77.61 on 2026-08-14 to $72.84 on 2026-08-21 across a week that contained an EPS beat.\n\nCrowding and positioning observables, stated as observables:\n- Sell-side was 9 buys / 0 holds / 0 sells with a $132.24 consensus target as of 2026-07-19. Against a $72.84 close that is roughly an 81% implied gap, and no post-print revision has been verified for this note. Unanimous coverage into a guidance cut is a supply of downgrades that has not yet been delivered.\n- The Merval was still up 30.5% over twelve months as of the 2026-08-18 session, with the Rio Times describing the decline as profit-taking on a crowded reform trade. Banks led the selling: Banco Macro −3.8% and Grupo Galicia −3.5% on 2026-08-15, BBVA Argentina −2.6% on 2026-08-20.\n- The earnings binary is spent. The print landed 2026-08-19; there is no scheduled company event inside the next 30 days to reprice against.\n- No insider transactions or equity issuance were identified in filings for this note.\n\n## Catalyst Calendar (next 30 days)\n\n- **2026-08-26** — congressional vote on the administration's reform bill. Flagged in the 2026-08-15 Rio Times coverage as a driver of bank-sector caution; not restated in the 2026-08-20 wrap, so treat the date as reported rather than confirmed.\n- **~2026-09-06 (est.)** — First Capital Group monthly report on August BCRA credit data. The July edition landed 2026-08-06. Shows whether personal lending posts an eleventh consecutive real monthly decline.\n- **~2026-09-11 (est.)** — INDEC August 2026 CPI. July's was published 2026-08-13 at 2.1% MoM with core 1.8%. A second consecutive month at or above that completes a two-print re-acceleration.\n\n## Elapsed catalysts\n\n- **Ongoing, daily** — USD/ARS against the 1,500 band ceiling (1,497 on 2026-08-20) and country risk against 517bp. *(passed 6d ago)*\n\n## What Would Change Our Mind\nThe structure that would have to rebuild is credit quality, and the earliest observable is not price. The specific reversal is a Q3 report showing the NPL ratio back inside the guided 5.5–6% band with total coverage recovering above 100%, and cost of risk tracking at the low end of 6.5–7% rather than the high end — that would restate the cycle as having peaked in Q2 and make the current de-rating a provisioning air pocket. Absent that, the credit-recovery narrative stays broken regardless of how oversold the tape reads.\n\nOn price: a weekly close below $70 confirms the breakdown extends past the August capitulation and leaves nothing above the spring range to reference. On the macro side, an INDEC August CPI at or above 2.1% MoM at the ~2026-09-11 release, with core above 1.8%, would take the disinflation leg down alongside the credit leg. In the other direction, an August CPI back under 1.9% together with positive real private lending in the ~2026-09-06 First Capital report would put the macro half of the story back in play — but the company's own 2–5% real loan-growth guidance would still cap what that is worth to this issuer through year-end.\n\n## Correlation Notes\n- Trades as a single exposure with GGAL, BBAR and SUPV. On 2026-08-15 the four moved −3.8%, −3.5%, −4.3% and −4.3% respectively; on 2026-08-20 BBVA led the decline again. Dispersion inside the group has stayed minimal, so idiosyncratic Q2 detail has had little separating power.\n- ARGT is the index proxy; the Merval level (2,874,493 on 2026-08-20, −0.59%, third consecutive decline) sets the beta.\n- Country risk at 517bp is the shared discount rate across all four bank ADRs — sovereign spread, not deposit franchise quality, has been driving the sector's multiple.\n- The ADR carries peso translation on top of equity risk. USD/ARS at 1,497 sits just under the 1,500 band ceiling; a band break converts peso operating results at a worse rate for a dollar holder regardless of what the bank earns in local currency.",
  "first_seen": "2026-06-14",
  "last_analyzed": "2026-08-23T12:21:58+00:00",
  "last_synthesized": "2026-08-23",
  "last_update_source": "watchlist_research",
  "license": "Content © FrontierPicks. Cite the canonical URL."
}