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Although the week was short due to the festive season and yield movements were narrow, all the newsflow last week turns out to be positive for the domestic bond market. The benchmark yield closed at 6.36 per cent on Wednesday, down by almost 3 basis points compared to the week before.
Global events
On the global front, the US Fed announced tapering of its bond buying programme on much anticipated lines at $15 billion per month. The 10-year US treasury yields, which had been having a negative impact on the domestic bond market, cooled down to 1.45 per cent last week compared to 1.56 per cent the week before. Brent crude prices also softened a bit, even nudging the $80/barrel mark last week before closing near the $83/barrel level.
Domestic development
On the domestic front, the Centre announced an excise duty cut of ₹5 per litre on petrol and ₹10 per litre on diesel last week. Bond dealers say this will be a positive for the market which expects the yields to fall further down to near the 6.3 per cent mark. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India continued to absorb the excess liquidity out of the system even as it conducted a 15-day variable rate reverse repo auction where the cut-off rate stood at 3.99 per cent. The central bank accepted offers worth ₹4.34 lakh crore against the notified amount of ₹5 lakh crore.
Subdued CPI expected
This week, the market is looking forward to the announcement of the consumer price index inflation print. Market participants say the CPI figure will most likely stand below the 4 per cent mark owing to the base effect for October, post which it may slightly start moving up gradually.
Vijay Sharma, Senior Executive Vice-President at PNB Gilts opined that so far, all the developments seen during the week are positive for the domestic bond market. “The two factors that were responsible for the upward movement in yields have turned positive over the last few days. The US Treasury yields came down even as the Fed decision on tapering stood pretty much in line with the market expectations. Crude prices coming down and a cut in excise duty are also conducive for the yields. It seems the benchmark yield could move towards the 6.3 per cent level in the short term. The inflation print for October is expected to come down below 4 per cent, mostly due to base effect.”
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