Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Oct 04, 2025

Wall Street is betting on Russian debt

Wall Street is betting on Russian debt

US banks have left Russia, but that doesn't mean they're done making money off the Kremlin's horrific invasion of Ukraine.

The sell-off of Russian debt associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin's campaign on Ukraine and the sanctions that have ensued have created a window for a new type of arbitrage that some in the finance world are gobbling up, seeing it as easy money.

The idea is what's known as a negative-basis trade, or purchasing dirt-cheap Russian government or corporate bonds along with credit-default swaps which act as insurance on the potential default of a borrower.

Normally this type of trade doesn't make sense, but as institutional investors look to quickly rid their portfolios of anything Russia-related, bond prices fell faster than the price to hedge them rose.

The volume of trading in Russian corporate debt has risen to a two-year high since Russia invaded according to Bloomberg News.

Data from the website MarketAxess shows that Russian sovereign debt traded at a volume of $7 billion between February 24 and April 7, up from $5 billion in the same period in 2021 -- a 35% uptick.

Russian bonds are trading furiously, said Philip M. Nichols, an expert on Russia and social responsibility in business and professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "There's a lot of speculators that are buying up these bonds that have been severely downgraded and are on the verge of becoming junk," he said.

Nichols says he's getting constant calls from analysts interested in the whether the potential trade makes sense. "The spread on Russian sovereign debt is astonishing right now," he said. "They're making an unusual amount of money with respect to the volume."

The cost to insure Russian debt grew to 4,300 basis points on April 5, up from 2,800 the previous day.

At the same time bond rates fell drastically -- with bonds maturing in 2028 trading at just $0.34 on the dollar. That means it could cost just over $4 million to insure $10 million of Russian securities, The Economist reported.

Hedge funds like Aurelius Capital Management, GoldenTree Asset Management and Silver Point Capital have increased their exposure to Russian markets, mostly by purchasing corporate bonds, the Financial Times reported in late March.

US financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are facilitating these trades, connecting clients who want to get out of their positions with hedge funds that have a higher risk tolerance for risk and less of a moral quandary about purchasing Russian debt.

"This is Wall Street," said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research. "It doesn't surprise me that they saw some sort of a loophole they could exploit to make money."

JPMorgan representatives say they are acting as middlemen, simply looking to aid clients. "As a market-maker, we have been helping clients reduce their risks and manage their exposures to Russia in the secondary markets. None of the trades violate sanctions or benefit Russia," said a spokesperson.

If clients wanted to quickly unload their exposure to Russia they could look to Russian oligarchs who would happily buy back sovereign bonds, said Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist and head of Global Bonds at PGIM Fixed Income. Selling Russian debt to US hedge funds, keeps any accrued interest out of Russian hands.

The trades are legal and lucrative, said Nichols, but highly speculative and subject to large swings based on news of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and further sanctions.

It also illustrates an alarming disconnect between Wall Street and the actual state of the global economy: Typically, investors would base their valuation of Russian debt on whether or not it will be repaid, and the likelihood that it would be repaid would depend on the strength and durability of the Russian economy, but that's not happening. New sanctions by the US Treasury on Tuesday, which blocked Russian access to any dollars they held in American banks, significantly increased the chances that Russia would default on its debt and that its gross domestic product, the main measure of a country's economic strength, would tumble.

The US Congress voted this week to remove Russia's most favored nation's trade status, a major economic downgrade that would pave the way for deeper sanctions and import controls on products essential to Russia like chemicals and steel.

The removal of that status, said Nichols, would sever Russia's integration into the global economy. If Wall Street were associated with the real world, he added, it wouldn't want to be anywhere near Russian debt.

"Russian debt is the province of high risk takers," said Nichols, "and institutions should probably stay away."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×