Argentina

Just days after panic swept through Argentine financial markets, some investors see pockets of opportunity but they also face the difficulty of trading in an environment distinguished by the evaporation of price liquidity, the Financial Times reported. Against this backdrop even small trades can move market prices sharply, making any substantial changes to a portfolio difficult to implement.

Argentines are struggling in crisis in what was once one of the world's most prosperous nations. Consumer prices are soaring, unemployment is high and the Argentine peso has plunged, bringing back haunting memories of the country's economic meltdown in 2001 that pushed millions into poverty, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. A growing number of people arrive at the "Happy Kids" soup kitchen in the Villa 1-11-14 shantytown, where servers try to stretch out steaming pots of stew because many more than expected are lining up for food.

The ingredients of Argentina's ongoing economic and currency crises are painfully familiar: an overvalued peso, gaping twin deficits and a hefty pile of dollar-denominated debt. Cue the IMF, and it's difficult to avoid flashing back to the country's $100bn-plus default in the early 2000s—the biggest in history at the time. But while Argentina's roughly $75bn financing needs for this year and next certainly appear daunting, there's reason to be (cautiously) optimistic that the country will be able to make ends meet this time around, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

The Canuelas Golf Club is spread out on 178 acres of pristine pampas grassland on the western outskirts of Buenos Aires. Inaugurated in 2014, the club plays host to the Latin American PGA Tour and is the pride and joy of its owner, the corporate titan Aldo Navilli. But the club has now drawn the attention of another set of investors as well: Creditors including ING, Rabobank and the World Bank’s International Finance arm.

When they meet Tuesday to discuss the currency crisis, senior officials from Argentina and the International Monetary Fund will seek a response that strikes a balance between domestic policy changes and external financing aid, a task that has been complicated by political and trust issues, a Bloomberg View reported. While Argentina is almost certain to get some concessions from the IMF, a decisive solution will be far more difficult and will require a lot of courage and skillful risk-taking on both sides.

A currency crisis is driving Argentina deeper into a recession. The peso is down more than 50 percent so far this year, competing in a race-to-the-bottom with the Turkish lira as the worst-performing currency in emerging markets, Bloomberg News reported. An emergency measure by the central bank, hiking interest rates to 60 percent from 45 percent, didn’t stop the peso’s plunge. Nor has selling reserves. Analysts say the lack of a clear, consistent strategy in South America’s second-largest nation is causing investors and the public to lose faith in the government of President Mauricio Macri.

Argentina’s currency crisis deepened on Thursday as an emergency interest-rate increase to 60 percent failed to stop jittery investors from pulling their money out of the country, Bloomberg News reported. The peso extended losses after the bank raised its benchmark measure by 15 percentage points to a global high. The hike, the second this month, was the latest attempt by policy makers to defend a currency that’s lost more than half its value this year.

Mauricio Macri’s presidency was meant to lead Argentina out of a dismal period of debt defaults, currency controls and recession, Bloomberg News reported. Markets show investors are losing faith in the new dawn for South America’s second-largest economy. Argentina’s yield spread over Treasuries -- the extra cost it pays to borrow in the bond market compared with the U.S. -- has climbed this month to the highest since December 2014. The spread surpassed Ecuador’s, which has the dubious distinction of having the second-most defaults in the world since 1800, for the first time since May 2015.

The International Monetary Fund said it was studying a request from Argentina to speed up disbursement of a $50 billion loan program after a collapse in investor confidence in President Mauricio Macri's government sent the peso tumbling more than 7 percent on Wednesday, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. It was the biggest one-day decline in the peso since the currency was allowed to float in December 2015. It closed at a record low of 34.10 per U.S.

Argentine police raided two homes of ex-President Cristina Kirchner, in the latest graft probe involving a former Latin American president as a sweeping anticorruption movement takes hold in the region, The Wall Street Journal reported. The search on Thursday of Mrs. Kirchner’s Buenos Aires apartment and a home in the southern Patagonia region came a day after the Senate partially lifted her immunity from prosecution as a sitting senator, deepening an investigation that prosecutors say is laying bare a widespread corruption scheme during her administration.