Bogota : Argentina's benchmark dollar bonds posted a third straight weekly gain, the longest winning streak in 2010, on speculation the country is moving closer to restructuring its defaulted securities.
The yield on the country's 7 per cent dollar bonds due in 2015 fell 83 basis points, or 0.83 percentage points, last week to 11.87 per cent, according to JPMorgan Chase.
The bond's price jumped three cents last week to 84 cents on the dollar.
Argentina's planned exchange of as much as $20 billion of defaulted bonds is "a bit closer" after the country filed updated documents with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Economy Minister Amado Boudou said in an interview Friday with C5N television in Buenos Aires. The restructuring would pave the way for Argentina to return to overseas debt markets for the first time since it defaulted on $95 billion of debt in 2001.
"We're in the countdown phase of a final verdict from the SEC," said Enrique Alvarez, head of Latin America fixed-income research at IDEAglobal in New York. "The market is supportive of narrowing spreads in the credit, not only because of rising bets that Argentina can go ahead with the debt swap, but what's more important, that it can reissue in what looks like a favourable international market."
