Vietnam Bonds Gain After Inflation Slows to 32-Month Low

Vietnam Bonds Gain After Inflation Slows to 32-Month Low

Vietnam’s five-year bonds rose for a fourth day as the government reported the slowest inflation in 32 months. The dong was stable.

The yield on debt due 2017 dropped to the lowest level in more than a week as the General Statistics Office in Hanoi said that consumer prices climbed 5.35 percent in July from a year earlier, after rising 6.9 percent in June. That is the slowest pace since November 2009. Price increases have decelerated each month after August 2011, official figures show.

The yield on benchmark five-year notes fell one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 9.88 percent, the lowest level since July 12, according to a daily fixing from banks compiled by Bloomberg.

With inflation slowing, “the primary movement of interest rates and government bond yields is still downward,” Le Nguyet Anh, a research manager at Ho Chi Minh City-based ACB Securities Co., wrote in a note dated yesterday. “If the low inflation rate can be maintained through 2013, the government bond yield is expected to decrease to 7.5 percent to 8 percent” across maturities, she wrote.

The dong was unchanged at 20,853 per dollar as of 2:50 p.m. in Hanoi, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The central bank fixed the reference rate at 20,828 today, according to its website. The currency is allowed to trade as much as 1 percent on either side of the rate

Bloomberg