Latin America

Venezuela’s bond market access is already negligible. If market participants want to take a moral position, they need to think about more than just new issues.

Venezuela and PDVSA bonds regained some ground on Thursday as reports that the US would implement a blanket ban on trading the securities appeared to be exaggerated. But the bonds remain near all-time lows as the market weighs up the possibility of US sanctions against the crisis-ridden nation.

There were no new bond issues from Latin America this week, but one EM syndicate banker claimed to be “brutally busy” pitching for September as market participants said Brazilian and Argentine issuers are likely to dominate new issue activity.

Some EM bond investors said that they were interpreting the drop in Venezuelan bond prices on Wednesday as a buying opportunity, saying that it was unlikely that the US would block all trading in the securities.

Chilean copper miner Codelco completed the second leg of its tender offer on Tuesday, bringing the total amount of debt that it has repurchased using proceeds from last month’s new issue to $2.357bn.

Investors were unperturbed by the first outflows from EM funds since 2016 last week, adding that some sources still recorded inflows, but noted that after good returns this year, they were happy to take less risk for the rest of the year.

Credit Suisse’s decision to ban trading in certain Venezuelan bonds is understandable, but ultimately raises more questions than it answers.

Juan Carlos Echeverry has left his position as CEO of Colombian state-owned oil giant Ecopetrol.

Scotiabank’s head of Latin American debt capital markets has left both the Canadian bank and the banking industry after more than 20 years working in EM bond markets.

Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca told bondholders on Friday that it would call some of its 7.625% dollar bonds due 2020, using proceeds from its recent debt issuance to do so.

Jamaica underlined the issuer-friendly conditions on offer in EM bond markets this week after an oversubscribed tap of two bonds that left some investors with allocations of zero amid a simultaneous buy-back.

Mauricio Macri’s ability to persuade Argentines of the long term benefits of his reforms amid a tough economic environment brought rewards to bond investors this week and left market analysts pleasantly surprised.