Page 2 - Us Yields News Today

Data showed U.S. consumer spending rose moderately in October, while the annual increase in inflation was the smallest in more than 2-1/2 years. On the jobs front, initial jobless claims rose from the prior week to indicate a softening of the labor market.

The yield on benchmark 10-year notes fell 3.9 basis points (bps) to 4.379%, after earlier sliding to 4.363%, a new two-month low. The two-years yield, which reflects interest rate expectations, rose 0.2 bps to 4.885%.

"U.S. yields and oil prices have been the major triggers for government bond yield movements off late. In the absence of any major trigger domestically, these factors will continue to drive bond yields," said Badrish Kulhalli, head of fixed income at HDFC Life Insurance.

SBI is tapping the international markets second time this financial year. While $750 million is underwritten by global banks, an additional $250 million is made available through a green shoe option arranged by global banks including HSBC and JP Morgan.

Equities were mixed in Asia, with gains for tech stocks offset by slumping commodity shares. Wall Street futures pointed slightly lower following gains across the big three indexes overnight, led by a 0.9% rally for the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

The yellow metal was down 0.60% on the week. The ten-year US yields fell 1.82% to 4.58% on Friday and slumped nearly 6% on the week. Likewise, the two-year yields settled 3% lower at 4.84% on the week. The US Dollar fell 1.07% to 105.06 on Friday as it recorded a weekly loss of around 1.50%.

The US central bank announced in a policy statement that it had decided to hold the policy rate steady in its current 5.25% to 5.50% range for now.

Does this mean India, with world-leading growth prospects by even the most conservative of assessments, is immune to the unrelenting northward march in global risk-free rates that are at their highest since the Global Financial Crisis? Well, not quite. Rather, a relatively circumspect pace of ascent for the US Dollar Index explains the soft landing in Indian equities thus far.

NSEs Nifty rose 177.5 points, or 0.91%, to close at 19,689.85. BSEs Sensex climbed 566.97 points or 0.87% to close at 66,079.36. Both indices had fallen over 0.7% on Monday as the escalation in geopolitical tensions in the Middle East resulted in oil prices surging.

This is how far back one must travel in time to understand the surging cost of funds in the worlds biggest debt market, which determines how much companies from Jakarta to Johannesburg would pay to raise funds for anything: From something as mundane as staff wages and vendor payments to initiatives far more elaborate and capital-intensive, such as capacity generation and M&A.