The widespread suspicion that the government of President Nestor Kirchner has manipulated inflation data and the likelihood that his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will succeed him are transforming the Argentine bond market into a financial bloodbath. Argentina's benchmark inflation-linked bonds have tumbled 24 percent this year, making the country's debt market the worst performer in the world, according to data compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bloomberg. Polls show that Fernandez is the front-runner to replace Kirchner in next week's elections. She rebuts claims by government statisticians that Kirchner's administration forced them to tamper with consumer price data to hide the extent of inflation. Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's biggest brokerage, estimates prices may be rising at a 17 percent annual pace, double the official rate. ``Argentine inflation-linked debt is the single worst long- term asset in all of emerging-markets,'' said Paul McNamara, who manages more than $1 billion of fixed-income at London-based Augustus Asset Managers. He sold his holdings of the securities when government workers said in February that they were told to eliminate prices from the index. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=axTqfaTiLf4I&refer=home LTCM => Argentine => Dot-com-bubble Lessons from the Crisis in Argentina : http://www.imf.org/external/np/pdr/lessons/100803.htm
Can you imagine government manipulating economic statistics - NO WAY - BUNCH OF CONSPIRACY NUTS ON THIS SITE.
We have TIPS Treasury Inflation Protected Securities trading in the USA. I never thought about The Government cooking the inflation numbers. Interesting thought.
One of John Dizard's columns in the FT described Argentina perfectly. He was talking about a trading strategy for their bonds, and in parentheses he said "(Surely no one invests there?)" Perfect summation of the place.
is this the article? http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?quer...entina&y=0&aje=false&x=0&id=070612000169&ct=0