Week of July 4 2014- Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
Monday, July 7th, 2014“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
1. Argentina Enter a State of ‘Technical Default’ — the $832M payment given to holders of the country’s restructured bonds was declared illegal late past week. The showdown continues as the New York judge presiding over the case insists the holdout creditors must be paid $1.5B before any other payments can be made. Argentina will still have a 30-day grace period until it enters a formal default.
2. S&P Places Argentina’s CCC-/C Foreign Currency Ratings on Watch — Reuters, Standard & Poor’s placed Argentina’s ‘CCC-/C’ unsolicited long- and short-term foreign currency ratings on “CreditWatch” with negative implications, citing likelihood of a default in interest payments. S&P stated “The CreditWatch placement reflects our view of at least a one-in-two probability that Argentina will not pay the outstanding $539 million interest payment on the discount bonds within the 30-day grace period,”.
3. First Half Asset Class Performance — courtesy of BIG, below is a quick recap of asset class performance in the first half of 2014 using various ETFs traded on US exchanges.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
