Bond funds run by Michael Hasenstab, one of the fixed income market’s biggest investors, lost nearly $1.8bn in a single day during the stampede out of Argentine assets that followed the drubbing of President Mauricio Macri in the weekend primary elections.
Mr Hasenstab, the star manager at California-based Franklin Templeton, has been one of the biggest buyers of Argentine debt, and six of his funds with the most significant exposure to the country suffered large drops in value in Monday’s rout, according to Financial Times calculations.
Concerns of a return to populist Peronist rule after the presidential election proper in October sent the peso down more than 20 per cent versus the dollar at one point and the yield on Argentina’s shorter-dated bonds surging to distressed levels. The odds of a debt default in the next five years also spiralled to 75 per cent.