FinanceTime

Puerto Rico GO bond hits five-month high

Maria was cataclysmic for Puerto Rico, cutting electricity to all 3.4 million residents. On the six-month anniversary, tens of thousands remained without power, thousands of homes remained in disrepair, and many businesses remain closed, even as debt prices began to recover.

Other analysts put little stock in the rise in the bond price. "Puerto Rico bonds are almost strictly held by optimists," said Matt Fabian, of Municipal Market Analytics, adding that the Puerto Rico bond market is "illiquid and strange" and that investor recovery prospects "are still grim."

To be sure, hurricane recovery is far from the only driver of creditor repayments. Litigation is a factor as well, particularly a fight between the Puerto Rican central government and its sales tax authority, COFINA, which itself owes $18 billion of debt.

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