Friday 18 February 2011

FT Tilt - Does the eurobond market like the Bahraini crackdown?(Registration)

A facetious question, for sure. But consider these two images. Are they compatible?

Tear gas in Bahrain

Price for Bahraini eurobond -- Thomson Reuters Eikon

Price for Bahraini eurobond -- Thomson Reuters Eikon

Bahrain's 2014 eurobond has hardly moved, even as the air in the kingdom has been replaced by tear gas.

As Gabriel Sterne, senior economist at frontier market specialist Exotix, points out, markets seem to be very relaxed about these vivid events.

Prices on the Eurobond maturing in 2014 have fallen just over 3% since late January, hardly a major eruption. That means that spreads over US benchmark yields have increased less than 1/3 of one percentage point (i.e. 31bp) since the one-year trough on January 18th. Spreads now stand at just 150bp above similarly-dated US treasuries. That could be a world record low for a country suffering such civil strife.


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