ADVERTISEMENT

Traders See No Relief for Indian Bonds as Inflation Woes Mount

India’s consumer-price index accelerated at the fastest pace in seven months.

Traders See No Relief for Indian Bonds as Inflation Woes Mount
Indian two thousand and five hundred rupee banknotes are arranged for a photograph in Mumbai. (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Sovereign bond traders’ worries about inflation are intensifying.

India’s consumer-price index accelerated at the fastest pace in seven months, data released Monday evening showed. The pace may quicken due to a bounce back in global energy prices, denying the inflation-targeting central bank space to lower interest rates next month at a time when economic growth is stuck at a three-year low.

Not surprisingly, the yield on the benchmark 10-year notes climbed above 7 percent Tuesday for the first time since last September. The yield could reach as high as 7.10 percent, according to IDFC Bank Ltd. Nomura Holdings Inc. is predicting CPI to rise above 4 percent this month, and to stay above the Reserve Bank of India’s 4 percent target through 2018.

Traders See No Relief for Indian Bonds as Inflation Woes Mount

Sovereign bonds have been under pressure on concerns rebounding oil prices would widen the government’s budget deficit, forcing it to boost the size of debt sales just when state administrations are borrowing heavily and the central bank is selling debt to suck out excess liquidity from the system.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kartik Goyal in Mumbai at kgoyal@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tan Hwee Ann at hatan@bloomberg.net, Ravil Shirodkar, Shikhar Balwani

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.