Argentine Banking System Archives Destroyed By Deadly Fire

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-05/argentine-banking-system-a...

... a massive fire - killing 9 people - has destroyed a warehouse archiving banking system documents. As The Washington Post reports, the fire at the Iron Mountain warehouse (which purportedly had multiple protections against fire, including advanced systems that can detect and quench flames without damaging important documents) took hours to control and the sprawling building appeared to be ruined. The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately clear - though we suggest smelling Fernandez' hands...

While first print is preliminary and subject to revision, the size of recent discrepancies have no precedent. This suggest that the government may be attempting to manage expectations by temporarily fudging the "estimate " of reserve numbers (first print) while not compromising "actual" final reported numbers. If this is so, it is a dangerous game to play and one likely to back-fire.

During a balance of payments crisis - as Argentina is undergoing - such manipulation of official statistics (and one so critical for market sentiment) is detrimental to the needed confidence building around the transition in the FX regime.