Home » Posts tagged 'technical default'
Tag Archives: technical default
“Game Over?” – Russia To Be In Technical Default Within Hours
“Game Over?” – Russia To Be In Technical Default Within Hours
More than two decades ago, on August 17, 1998, Russia defaulted on its debt and devalued the ruble, sparking a political crisis that culminated with Vladimir Putin replacing Boris Yeltsin and which also eventually resulted in the spectacular implosion of a then little known hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management (which was staffed to the gills with “brilliant” Nobel prize winners) which after receiving a Fed-led Wall Street bailout, ushered in the era of too big to fail.
We bring this up because in just a few hours, Russia will be in another technical default.
Amid the flurry of capital controls imposed by Moscow today, the Russian central bank banned coupon payments to foreign owners of ruble bonds known as OFZs in what it said was a temporary step to shore up markets in the wake of international sanctions. What it really is, is a technical default on upcoming interest and maturity payments, with a trigger due as soon as tomorrow.
The Bank of Russia issued the instruction to depositaries and registries as part of a raft of measures announced this week that included a freeze on local security sales by foreigners. It could leave foreign investors who held almost 3 trillion rubles ($29 billion) in the debt at the start of February unable to collect income on their holdings, which are already blocked from sale by restrictions.
“Issuers have the right to make decisions on the payment of dividends and the making of other payments on securities and transfer them to the accounting system,” the central bank said in an emailed reply to questions. “However, the payments themselves will not be made by depositories and registrars to foreign clients. This also applies to OFZ.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“The US Is Staring Down A Technical Default” – Here Are The Five Debt Ceiling Scenarios
“The US Is Staring Down A Technical Default” – Here Are The Five Debt Ceiling Scenarios
In a note released on Monday commenting on the looming US debt ceiling showdown and the growing threat of a government shutdown and technical default by the US, Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky said he is becoming increasingly concerned that fall deadlines for federal government funding and the debt ceiling will prove tougher than the market currently expects, resulting in “markets roiled heading into 4Q and Fed’s policy normalization trajectory facing complications.” He adds that the increasingly fragmented legislative landscape may be set to “transition from inaction to dysfunction”, citing such factors as:
- Lawmakers return in Sept. with no clear strategy
- GOP leaders will likely be forced to rely on sizable contingents of Democrats
- Current spending caps for FY2018 are “despised” by both Democrats, Republicans, but for wholly different reasons
- White House’s position remains unclear as Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin has repeatedly called for a clean debt ceiling increase, but over the weekend President Donald Trump and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney suggested putting legislative activity on hold until health care is addressed
As a result, Boltansky sees odds of govt shutdown as materially higher than the likelihood of reaching debt ceiling as core components of spending fight (including border wall funding) are “meaningfully more politically complicated” than raising debt ceiling; his base case is for the federal government to face a brief shutdown in early October.
While that may be a little extreme, the reality is that with Congress critically fragmented, and with increasingly more politicians chosing to ignore anything that comes out of the mouth of the president, a happy ending is by no means assured and, as Boltansky suggests, “market event” may be necessary to spur Congress into action, similar to the passage of the TARP bill.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
