Argentina

Bond market participants in Argentina say that more issuers from the country could look to pre-empt election-related uncertainty and take advantage of benign fundraising conditions after Pampa Energía followed in YPF’s footsteps with a 10 year deal on Tuesday.

Bond investors will have a chance to give a further indication of their appetite for Argentine risk as Pampa Energía looks to follow in YPF’s steps and continue to reactivate the primary markets from the country.

State-owned Argentine oil and gas company YPF became the first borrower from the country to tap international bond markets in 14 months on Monday. Yet despite a healthy reception from investors, bankers do not expect copycat trades from other Argentine issuers.

Dennis Eisele will become Credit Suisse’s head of Latin American debt capital markets in August after he ended a 19 year stint Deutsche Bank, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital.

Xinjiang Goldwind Science and Technology is tapping the offshore loan market for a $475m green loan to support its windfarm projects in Argentina.

The risk of a Cristina Fernández de Kirchner winning the presidential election in Argentina has spooked investors, causing the currency to sell off and bond prices to slump. But the weakening economy is bolstering support for president Mauricio Macri’s rivals, causing what investors are calling a “toxic feedback loop”.

A coup attempt in Venezuela has rekindled hopes among investors that president Nicolás Maduro will cede control to the opposition regime. The development drew the spotlight away from Argentina’s spiralling currency.

Argentina’s central bank has abandoned its promise to allow the peso to trade freely within a range and has received approval from the IMF to use its foreign currency reserves to intervene.

Argentina and Turkey are firmly established as volatile names in emerging market credit. Both sovereigns have political and economic issues that place them in the highly vulnerable bracket.

Battling a host of problems — local and global — Latin American bond markets suffered a torrid 2018. Many issuers stayed away, high yielders struggled to find financing and investors booked losses. With more volatility expected, political developments in LatAm’s three largest economies could make or break the region’s bond markets in 2019. Oliver West reports.

In this round-up, Trump was confident China would deliver on promises from G20 dinner, China signed several cooperation agreements in Panama and Argentina, China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) planned to lift bans on trading stock-index futures to boost market activity.

Some Latin American DCM bankers think the year is over for new issuance, and several are indeed wishing it already were. Although much of what put the brakes on in Lat Am this year will continue to affect the market in 2019, bond bankers should find reasons to believe January will be better.