Paraguayan stock market review: June 2026

Securities issuance rebounded in May, with the highest volume of the year and a record move in the equity market

• The fifth month of 2026 again saw a fall in the country's exchange business, but with encouraging signs from the performance of the primary market and equities.

• Securities issuance came close to one trillion guaraníes in May, the highest figure so far this year. Strong confidence in the local currency was also evident.

• Total volume traded on the Asunción Stock Exchange was G. 22.2 trillion (USD 3,572 million) over the five months, down 3% on the same period last year.

The close of the first five months of 2026 continued to show a contraction in exchange trading volumes, as has been the case for some months, but with signs of improvement from new securities issuance across the different sectors of the economy.

The Asunción Stock Exchange (BVA) recorded transactions of G. 22.2 trillion (approximately USD 3,572 million at current exchange rates) in the first five months of 2026, down 3% on the same period last year.

This result deepened the slowdown seen in previous months. After 2025 closed with 17% growth in BVA volumes, the pace eased to 3.1% by the end of the first quarter, and the cumulative figure to April already showed a 1% fall.

In May 2026, exchange transactions totalled G. 4.5 trillion (some USD 754 million), above the G. 4.3 trillion recorded in April and the G. 4 trillion in March, while the highest figures remain the G. 4.6 trillion seen in both January and February. Even so, the amount reached in the fifth month of the year still represents a 9.4% fall against May 2025.

This was the third consecutive month of year-on-year decline in total BVA trading volume, after a 11.7% drop in March and 17.7% in April. This pace of expansion had already been slowing, having started the year with 17.2% growth in January and rising only 6% in February. 

Volume traded in May of each year (2023 to 2026)

Figures in billions of guaraníes

Source: Prepared with data from the Asunción Stock Exchange.

Looking at the breakdown by market, securities issuance has still not returned to the volumes seen a year earlier. After year-on-year growth of 210.4% in January and 95.3% in February, negative figures began to appear in March, with an 11.8% fall that deepened to 17.7% in April and continued into May, with a 12.5% contraction.

The five-month period therefore closed with trading volume of G. 3.3 trillion in the BVA primary market, still 8.3% up on the same period last year.

May comfortably exceeded the monthly volumes the primary market had been seeing: G. 947,449 million in securities issued was 23% above the year's previous high, the G. 769,734 million of February; it is also almost three times the volume recorded in January and double that of March.   

It is worth remembering that this May 2026 issuance figure is compared against a month in 2025 that was exceptionally buoyant, which produces the year-on-year contraction mentioned. A year earlier, the primary market recorded a volume of G. 1 trillion. 

Volume traded in the primary market – May of each year (2023 to 2026)

Figures in billions of guaranies

Source: Prepared with data from the Asunción Stock Exchange.

The presence of financial institutions raising funds on the exchange recovered in May 2026. After accounting for 53% of guaraní bond issuance in February, their share fell to 28% in March and to just 7% in April. In May, however, it came to 24% and, including the Agencia Financiera de Desarrollo (AFD), it rises to 55%.

The financial sector's share of dollar issuance, meanwhile, had been 74% in February, fell to zero in March, and in April and May was back above 50%.

The sector with the largest share of new local-currency securities on the Asunción exchange was services, with 33% of primary market volume during May 2026, followed by the public sector (32%).

Trade and industry were also represented by companies issuing local-currency bonds during the period, with shares of 8% and 3% respectively.

As for dollar issuance, financial institutions accounted for 60% of this market, the public sector for 22% of trading volume, industry for 11% and agricultural production for 7%.

Breakdown of May issuance by economic sector

Guaraníes

Dólares

Source: Prepared with data from the Asunción Stock Exchange.

The secondary market, that is, trading in securities already issued on the exchange, saw a fourth consecutive month of year-on-year decline. The fall here deepened from 2.7% in February to 11.5% in March, stayed similar in April at 10.9%, and eased to 8.4% in May, after rising 11.4% in January.

Cumulative volume in this market reaches G. 18.9 trillion for the five-month period, with monthly trading amounts falling steadily from the G. 4.3 trillion recorded in January to G. 3.9 trillion in February and G. 3.5 trillion in March, holding around G. 3.5 trillion in April and May.

Volume traded in the secondary market – May of each year (2023 to 2026)

Figures in billions of guaraníes

Source: Prepared with data from the Asunción Stock Exchange.

Guaraní transactions were again the majority of exchange activity in May 2026, with a 66.7% share, the highest so far this year. Dollar-denominated transactions made up the remaining 33.3%. In the primary market, guaraní issuance represented 69.5% of total volume, while dollar issuance took the remaining 30.5%. 

A record share for the equity market

While bonds remained the most traded instruments on the BVA, with a 94.6% share in May 2026, shares reached a record 5.1%, featuring in transactions worth G. 232,408 million.

This equity trading volume came in a month when the modernisation of the Paraguayan exchange took a key step: the dematerialisation of Banco Continental shares carried out by the Caja de Valores del Paraguay (CAVAPY) for subsequent trading on the exchange's secondary market.

César Paredes, president of CADIEM Administradora de Fondos, acknowledged that this was one of the month's most significant events, given that 2,400 shareholders hold these securities. “The fact that a player of this size trusts the book-entry share system is very important; the exchange's future growth will come from the equity market,” he said.

Among the benefits of this technological leap, César Paredes explained that, with shares already issued electronically, ownership is transferred immediately on trading. “That is what the equity market needs: greater agility. Many companies need capital, and this is the great opportunity,” he said.

The share of equities in exchange transactions in previous months had been around 1%. Investment funds, for their part, represented 0.3% of total exchange trading volume in the fifth month of the year.

Another feature the Asunción exchange is taking on is the entry of banks as a standing funding strategy, that is, issuing financial bonds regularly while continuing to take public deposits and obtain external financing.

“The financial system will keep needing capital, because as it grows it needs capital immediately, given the pace of lending growth. The financial sector will remain a significant player for the exchange,” said César Paredes.

He finally warned that uncertainty stemming from global geopolitical tensions persists, seen mainly in the decline of the BVA secondary market, compounded by the stabilisation of liquidity levels in the local financial system.

“There is an uneasy calm. All the uncertainty around the dollar, oil and the global situation is keeping us still; projects are presented, but not at the pace we had from mid-2024. Brazil is giving us a hand with capital inflows and incoming industry, but it is not yet showing up on the exchange,” concluded the chairman of CADIEM Fondos.