Establishment and launch
Law No. 26,831 was enacted in 2012. In July 2013, Merval shareholders approved a partial spin-off to create BYMA, with a capital contribution from the BCBA.
On 29 December 2016, the CNV approved BYMA's registration as a market. Merval transferred its trading activities to BYMA in 2017, and trading moved from the SINAC platform to the Millennium system.
Market development
In December 2024, five new CEDEARs representing ETFs were listed. Two of them, ETHA and IBIT, track Ethereum and Bitcoin. They were the first cryptocurrency ETFs available as CEDEARs in Argentina. The other three were GLD (gold), SH (an inverse S&P 500 fund) and FXI (Chinese equities).
BYMA Clearing went into operation in April 2026. Built on Nasdaq technology, it handles clearing, settlement, collateral and risk management.
From 2018 to 2026, S&P Dow Jones Indices calculated and administered BYMA's equity indices. On 19 October 2026, MSCI assumed responsibility for the indices.
The S&P Merval became the MSCI Merval (MMSCI), while the BYMA General Index was replaced by the MSCI BYMA Argentina General (GMSCI). Both indices started with a base value of 100,000 points and are published in Argentine pesos and US dollars.
The MSCI Merval initially included 19 stocks. Cresud entered the index, replacing Telecom Argentina and Sociedad Comercial del Plata, which were removed from the previous composition. The new methodology limits each stock to 15% of the index's total weight, with quarterly reviews in February, May, August and November.
In September 2026, BYMA and Galicia Asset Management, a subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Galicia, announced plans for Argentina's first domestically established exchange-traded fund (ETF). BYMA selected Galicia through an open call to structure the fund. The project operates under General Resolutions 1142 and 1143 of the National Securities Commission, approved in May 2026, and is intended to track the MSCI Merval index.
