Oil companies just can’t catch a break. Energy bonds plummeted Monday to record lows, some of them with extraordinary drops of 10, 20 or even 30 cents on the dollar, Bloomberg News reported. The average spread over Treasuries for companies in the Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Energy index has surged above 10% for the first time since 2016, back when hundreds of energy-related companies were going bust or restructuring. That last round of rejiggering was supposed to stabilize the industry’s future by cutting debt and extending maturities for almost a decade.

Ecuador’s dollar bonds slumped the most in emerging markets as investors price in a higher probability of default following the crash in crude prices, Bloomberg News reported. The nation’s dollar bonds due 2028 fell 10.6 cents to 47.6 cents on the dollar on Monday, sending the yield surging 4.3 percentage points to 22.3%. The extra yield investors demand to hold Ecuadorian debt over U.S. Treasuries blew out 753 basis points to 27.33 percentage points. That compares to 28.16 percentage points for Argentina which is preparing to restructure its debt.

Argentina’s latest debt dilemma is whether to pay or delay its local peso debt, Bloomberg News reported. While the country’s billions of dollars in foreign debt with private creditors and the International Monetary Fund have been the primary focus for investors, the nation now faces a hurdle that’s just as large: the almost 1.8 trillion pesos ($29 billion) in local debt maturing this year, an amount roughly equivalent to all the cash in circulation in the country. And while the fact that it’s in pesos should have lessened the burden, Argentina is finding it tough to refinance.

Argentina’s minister of economy met with representatives of several major creditors, including asset management firm Pimco, a company executive and a ministry source said on Wednesday, as separate talks continued with the International Monetary Fund, Reuters reported. “We accepted an invitation to visit the ministry to discuss a range of issues (with Economy Minister Martin Guzman) on a one-to-one basis,” said Pramol Dhawan, head of the emerging markets portfolio management team at Pimco, a major holder of Argentine debt. Pimco is a unit of Allianz SE.

Venezuela is planning to sell some of its shares in the CAF Latin American development bank to pay down its debt with the lender, representatives of the South American country’s opposition said, Reuters reported. The sale was expected to be discussed at a meeting of the CAF’s board on Tuesday, said two opposition lawmakers and a member of a committee named by the opposition to restructure the country’s debt, who warned that the move would jeopardize the crisis-stricken nation’s economic recovery.

Uruguay’s new government wants to offer tax breaks to entice wealthy Argentines to relocate across the River Plate to boost local investment, but the rich need little encouragement to leave. Ever since Alberto Fernández took power in Buenos Aires in December and hiked taxes on personal assets, Argentines have been weighing the benefits of emigrating to escape what many see as confiscatory taxes, the Financial Times reported. The tax rate on assets held abroad is now double the local rate — up to 2.5 per cent — which is triple the level under the previous government.

A new program being discussed by Argentina and its biggest lender, the International Monetary Fund, could set up private bondholders for heavy losses without requiring the spending cuts needed to make the country solvent, investors say, Reuters reported. Argentina and the IMF announced last month they would start Article IV consultations - allowing the Fund to inspect Argentina’s accounts - as a stepping stone to a possible new program that would replace a defunct $57 billion loan agreement struck by the previous government in 2018.

The International Monetary Fund will send another mission to Argentina to continue debt strategy talks and discuss “next steps,” an IMF spokesman said on Thursday, as the South American nation seeks to renegotiate its $57 billion financing package, Reuters reported. The IMF technical team will arrive in Buenos Aires next week for meetings with economy ministry officials about the government’s economic program, the spokesman said. The fund’s last mission to Argentina ended just over a week ago.

The first coronavirus case in Latin America sent currencies tumbling across the region Thursday as investors became increasingly risk averse, Bloomberg News reported. All Latin American currencies were among the worst performers in emerging markets, with Brazil’s real reaching an all-time low despite the central bank intervention and the Mexican peso dropping to the weakest since early December. Both the Colombian and Chilean pesos were on track to reach their all-time lows.

As Argentina descends into a hellscape for creditors, with bond prices taking a fresh leg down as each new development saps spirits, there are a few securities bucking the trend, Bloomberg News reported. Investors are sorting through billions of dollars of Argentine debt, some of it trading at deeply distressed levels below 50 cents on the dollar, in search of bonds that are being unfairly punished for the federal government’s problems.