Hedge fund manager Rob Citrone earned $730 million last year, much of it from successful bets on Argentina under its libertarian president, Javier Milei. A year ago, Citrone predicted even better times ahead. “The average person in the street is supportive” of Milei’s budget-slashing, Citrone enthusiastically told Bloomberg. The chance that Argentina would default again, he said, was “minuscule.”
Even when Milei’s “anarcho-capitalist” revolution seemed to be in jeopardy in the fall—with local elections in Buenos Aires giving a sweeping victory to the left-wing Peronist party; bribery allegations involving Milei’s sister; and a drop in the value of the peso, Citrone stayed confident. “There was a bit of a panic among locals with regards to the midterm elections, and then some foreigners got nervous as well,” he told Bloomberg. When prices fell, he added to his bond portfolio.
His confidence was rewarded on Sunday when Milei’s libertarian party scored bigger than expected gains in elections for the national legislature. The party won 41 percent of the vote, which put it in position to roughly double its number of seats. Milei’s party still doesn’t have enough seats to pass bills on its own, but it can now defeat legislative attempts to override his vetoes.
