What Markets Are Telling Argentina’s Next Leader

Monday’s panic over Argentina’s weekend election results — the peso fell 15% and the S&P Merval stock index suffered its second worst rout in 70 years — may have been a bit overwrought. It was a primary election, after all, and the winning opposition candidate, Alberto Fernandez, has denied any intention to default on Argentina’s debt. But it sends an important message to Fernandez, and his running mate, former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner: Before the October election, they must convince stakeholders in Argentina’s economy that they understand the need to carry on with incumbent President Mauricio Macri’s economic reforms, if by another name.

Fernandez’s win was such a landslide, it sparked fears of a return to debt default, uncontrolled inflation and frenzied selloffs, precisely the sort of trouble that Argentines thought they had left behind. But the new market mess is a panic foretold.