By Chelsey Dulaney
International debt issued by the Venezuelan government and state-owned oil company PdVSA rallied on Monday after the U.S. ouster of President Nicolás Maduro.
Investors are betting that the Trump administration's capture of Maduro will clear the way for a restructuring of Venezuela's sovereign debt, which the government defaulted on in 2017 after the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Maduro regime.
The sanctions have made it impossible for international investors who lent billions of dollars to Venezuela to negotiate a restructuring.
Venezuela's debt is still trading at deeply discounted levels and major questions remain over who will lead the country going forward.
-- The price of a U.S. dollar government bond maturing in 2031 rose to 40 cents on the dollar from 34 cents earlier in the day, according to Tradeweb.
-- A PdVSA U.S. dollar bond maturing in 2027 rose to 30 cents from 28 cents earlier, according to Tradeweb.
The best outcome for international bondholders is for Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who became the country's de facto leader on Saturday, to lead the country with U.S. support, according to Ramiro Blazquez, a Latin America strategist at StoneX, a financial services company. A revival in the Venezuelan oil sector could also benefit Venezuela's creditors.
Blazquez believes foreign investors could, on average, recover 53 to 63 cents on the dollar of their investments through a restructuring, suggesting further upside from Monday's moves.
This item is part of a Wall Street Journal live coverage event. The full stream can be found by searching P/WSJL (WSJ Live Coverage).
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 05, 2026 08:58 ET (13:58 GMT)
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