Argentina’s peso lost more than a quarter of its value against the U.S. dollar Thursday, a day after the new government of President Mauricio Macri said it would lift currency controls to attract investors and kick-start the economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Within minutes of trading, the peso weakened to 13.9 per dollar from 9.8 the previous day, its biggest percentage decline since January 2002, following the abandonment of the peso-dollar parity.

Fitch Ratings cut Brazil’s sovereign-credit rating to junk status on Wednesday, citing the country’s ballooning budget deficit, political turmoil and a deeper-than-expected recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision deals a fresh blow to President Dilma Rousseff as she struggles to revive the economy and avoid impeachment. Fitch becomes the second major credit-rating firm to downgrade Brazil to junk, a move that could trigger a selloff of Brazilian financial assets and make it more expensive for the government to borrow.

Argentina’s new government on Wednesday lifted currency controls, allowing its citizens to buy dollars freely for the first time in four years and setting the stage for a sharp depreciation of the peso, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move, which officials hope will kick-start the faltering economy, is the strongest President Mauricio Macri has yet made in his bid to roll back the government interference that marked the country’s economy under the previous presidencies of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner.

Ecuador repaid $650 million of its foreign debt due Tuesday, marking the first time in the South American nation’s more than 180-year history that it’s repaid global bonds on time, even as a collapse in the OPEC country’s crude prices saps liquidity needed to keep the government operating normally, Bloomberg News reported. President Rafael Correa, who led the nation’s default on $3.2 billion of overseas debt seven years ago, said on his Twitter account Tuesday that the government would also meet public workers’ December salary payments without problems.

Brazil sugar and ethanol producer Tonon Bioenergia SA, which operates three mills with a total capacity to process 8.2 million tonnes of cane per year, has sought court protection against creditors, the company said late on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Tonon said its debt, largely denominated in dollars, soared following the recent weakening of Brazil's currency. The sugar group's debt in Brazilian reais jumped by 69 percent by the end of September to 2.66 billion ($707 million) compared to the same time a year earlier.

Brazil’s woes deepened on Wednesday as Moody’s Investors Service downgraded all ratings for embattled oil group Petrobras, and the country faced the threat of losing its investment grade credit rating from the agency, the Financial Times reported. Moody’s downgraded all ratings for Petrobras to Ba3 from Ba2, and placed them on review for possible further downgrade. “These rating actions reflect Petrobras’ elevated refinancing risks in the face of deteriorating industry conditions that make it more difficult to raise cash through asset sales,” the agency said.

Spanish conglomerate Abengoa, teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, has halted construction of power transmission lines in Brazil, a potential setback for the South America nation's bid to emerge from its worst energy crisis in 14 years, Reuters reported. Unions representing construction workers, a wind power industry group and Abengoa's sub-contractor on the new power lines said the Spanish company informed them of the interruption in recent days.

Some of Grupo BTG Pactual SA’s fixed-income funds have lost about half of their net assets in the week that followed the arrest of the firm’s billionaire founder, Andre Esteves. Clients pulled a net 6.7 billion reais ($1.8 billion) in the week after Esteves was jailed as part of a corruption probe in Brazil, according to the latest available data compiled by Bloomberg. That represents more than half of the combined net assets of the 10 fixed-income funds listed on the bank’s website, which totaled 12.7 billion reais the day before the arrest.

Late President Hugo Chávez won loyalty by distributing hundreds of billions of petrodollars to lift millions of Venezuelans out of poverty. The money has run out for his handpicked successor, President Nicolás Maduro, The Wall Street Journal reported. Less than three years into Mr. Maduro’s tenure, Venezuela’s economy is in shambles amid low oil prices, and poverty is more prevalent than it was when the leftist Chavismo movement took power nearly 17 years ago.

Brazil’s recession deepened in the third quarter into what economists say is the country’s worst crisis since the Great Depression, as political gridlock and a giant corruption scandal have halted investment and forced consumers to pare spending to the bone, The Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product shrank 4.5% in the third quarter from a year earlier, the biggest contraction since Brazil started measuring GDP by the current system in 1996, Brazil’s statistics agency said Tuesday.