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Hedge Fund Investors Are Now Investing in Puerto Rican Debt

Chris Vernon talks briefly about the Puerto Rican bond situation. It seems that hedge fund professionals, professional investors are now investing in Puerto Rican debt that the prices are so depressed that these investors now feel like there is a significant upside to investing in Puerto Rican debt and they are willing to make the bet that Puerto Rico will make a significant comeback. That’s good news for Puerto Rico, however, many retail investors who had previously invested in Puerto Rican debt ended up having their portfolios wiped out because these financial advisors would put these conservative portfolios into a leveraged position and in some cases multiple leveraged or margined positions, which means they were borrowing a lot of money to invest in Puerto Rican debt. And when the bond prices went down, these loans were effectively called in, and these portfolios of these retail investors were wiped out. And the tragedy is, because they were wiped out, they aren’t going to be able to participate in any Puerto Rican bond or debt recovery, or Puerto Rico recovery, if and when it returns. So remember be really careful and do your independent and I emphasize independent due diligence before you do any investment, no matter who is doing it to you.