A few months ago, I was reviewing how the dollar moved against the Mexican peso and noticed something interesting in the data from that day. The exchange rate hovered around 17.19 pesos per dollar according to the official FIX, although in the spot market it was already trading a bit higher, close to 17.20. The curious thing was seeing how banks had quite wide spreads in their dollar-to-Mexican peso quotes.

I remember that Banorte offered to buy at 16.00 and sell at 17.55, while Intercam had somewhat different ranges. But what really moved the market that day was the news from China about recommendations to financial institutions to limit purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds. The DXY index fell nearly 0.72% because of that.

The interesting part is that the Mexican peso gained ground that week, appreciating almost 1.06% against the dollar. Analysts expected the dollar to Mexican peso to fluctuate between 17.08 and 17.36 during the session. Banxico, as always, published its FIX around midday for official operations and fiscal calculations. Those dollar movements always attract quite a bit of attention in the market.