, Columnist
What's Up With Argentina's 'Vultures' Today?
Here are some schemes, none of which really work, but what can I say, I just really like schemes.
Very little about the Argentina situation is at all clear, but this is reasonably clear: Argentina won't default on its bonds today. Not because everything will magically get wrapped up by 5 o'clock, but just because Argentina's $539 million interest payment due today is subject to a 30-day grace period, so it's really due 30 days from today.
The story, remember, is: Argentina has some exchange bonds, which it wants to pay, and some holdout bonds, which it doesn't. Judge Thomas Griesa, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, has ordered it not to pay the exchange bondholders unless it also pays the holdout bondholders, led by Elliott Management.1