Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Hunt who wrote (37254)	7/17/1999 6:45:00 AM
From: John Hunt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116915

Jitters in Latin America << For a brief period this week it appeared that financial contagion was back with a vengeance in Latin American markets. Reports that Eduardo Duhalde, the candidate of the governing Peronist party in coming presidential elections in Argentina, was advocating a moratorium on foreign debt prompted investors to sell Argentine stocks and bonds, triggering an 8.66 per cent fall in the stock market - the largest one day fall since mid-January - and a rise of nearly one percentage point in the yields on the country's international bonds. But it was not just Argentina that suffered. Brazil, which has close links with the Argentine economy, was particularly badly hit, with bond yields rising by a full percentage point. Even Mexico, which has only limited links with its southern neighbours, saw bond yields rise by 0.5 per cent. >> << Although it is one of the region's smaller economies, Ecuador is a particular cause of concern. The country is struggling with a banking crisis and some investors fear that it may not be able to make interest payments on Brady bonds that come due next month. Its bonds now offer a spread - or difference in yield - of nearly 24 percentage points above US Treasuries. A default or forced restructuring would be the first ever in the Brady market and could have far-reaching consequences for the area as a whole. "It would be difficult to isolate the effects to Ecuador," says Thomas Trebat, economist at Salomon Smith Barney. "It could contaminate the entire Brady universe," says Arturo Porzecanski, economist at ING Barings. >> ft.com