2000-03-03 Aided by positives
Daily Brady Bond Trading Commentary
Friday March 3, 2000
Emerging market debt was aided by a number of positives and traded well albeit on relatively light volume which was concentrated in the morning hours.
A very benign jobs number - well below the fears of some economists - combined with a small uptick in the unemployment rate allayed fears of a 50 bps tightening by the FOMC at its next meeting later this month. US bond prices and the equity markets took encouragement from these figures released at 0830 hrs, and we never lost the positive tone although some traders let paper go in the afternoon in front of the week-end.
Traders are positioned to take advantage of a Mexican upgrade by Moodys and are also encouraged by IMF comments about Ecuador's dollarization program and a possible multilateral financing package.
It is worth noting that Carnival in Brazil should take some traders out of the market for a few days but, in the short term, we see little to take the optimism out of this bull run.
Contributed by
Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA) Inc.
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