Browsing: High-Interest Rate Environment

• Treasury Bonds Auction for the month of July recorded only a 2 percent subscription rate 
• The domestic bond market has faced challenges, despite the lower yields on Eurobonds
• This high yield reflects investor concerns about Kenya’s economic stability and fiscal health​

Investors have shied away from government bonds as the treasury only managed to raise 2 per cent of the Sh20 billion it had targeted in its July tap sale.

This saw the government only get Sh487.5million as the investors instead preferring to pump funds into short-term Treasury bills on expectations that interest rates will soon go up in the country.

The bonds are instruments through which the government will use to borrow from the market.

The domestic bond market has faced challenges. Despite the lower yields on Eurobonds, yields on Kenyan government bonds remain high, with 10-year bonds yielding 17.759 per cent as of early July 2024.

This high …

Yield-chasing investors have poured money into Africa, but an emerging, recent challenge for the continent is that in a now higher interest rate environment, investors don’t need to come to Africa to find higher returns.

Even US treasuries are now yielding far more attractive yields than just a month ago: three-month government bonds offer 5.32 per cent, while 2-year bonds offer a yield above five per cent. Yields have risen in part in response to Fitch’s recent downgrade of the US from AAA to AA+, echoing S&P’s move in 2011.
African bond issuers, spooked by the high-interest rate environment and refusing to issue bonds above the psychological barrier of double-digit yields for Sub-Saharan African bonds, continue to wait it out on the sidelines.…