Thursday's Wall Street Journal offered vivid confimation of what I wrote about here last weekend.
By Paul Price
Anyone who dumped their Puerto Rican muni bonds after reading Barron's ultra-negative cover story (last August) got horrible bids when they went to sell. Ditto for those that held on until Standard & Poors finally down graded (clown-graded?) PR bonds to junk status.
The immediate drop in prices for those bonds allowed dealers, who likely knew in advance that last week's $3.5 billion new offering was coming, to take PR tax-free bonds from scared investors at distressed prices.
Puerto Rican bonds are still down from late 2012 but anyone who 'sold on the news' from Barron's or the ratings services locked in the worst prices in decades. Many of those bonds are up more than 10% in principal from their recent low points. That is a massive move in the usually stodgy bond arena.
PS: I want credit for coining that 'clown-graded' term.
