Singapore: Emerging-market bonds fell last week as the busiest start to a year for borrowing by developing nations since 2005 and monetary tightening in China cooled demand for high-yielding assets.
China's central bank has guided short-term bill yields higher and raised the amount of funds banks must set aside as reserves this month to curb record lending. Vietnam's government delayed the pricing of a $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) sale of 10-year bonds until early this week because of volatility in global markets, according to three investors briefed by arrangers of the sale who asked not to be identified.
The spread between yields on emerging-market debt and US Treasuries widened 17 basis points to 3.03 percentage points last week, after declining 4.16 percentage points in 2009, according to the JPMorgan Chase & Co's Emerging Market Bond Index Plus. The JPMorgan EMBI+ Composite Index fell 0.6 per cent to 494.20 on Friday in New York from a week ago. Argentina's bond spread swelled 16 basis points on Friday, the most in the index, to 7.56 percentage points.
