Mexikanischer Peso Anleihen - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[NiccoBond]

Mexico Peso Heads for Biggest Weekly Gain Since 1998 on Vote

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's peso headed for its biggest weekly gain in almost eight years on expectations Felipe Calderon of the governing National Action Party will be declared the winner of the presidential election.

Calderon, who promised to stick to President Vicente Fox's policies in favor of free trade and spending restraints, yesterday beat Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by 243,934 ballots in a tally of 40.9 million valid votes. Lopez Obrador said he will challenge the results in the electoral court, which has until Aug. 31 to settle the case.

``The market is pricing in that the elections were transparent, that they were legal and that Calderon will take office the next year,'' Flavia Cattan-Naslausky, an emerging- market currency strategist with Royal Bank of Scotland, said in a telephone interview from Greenwich, Connecticut.

The peso gained 0.2 percent to 11.0045 per dollar at 4:02 p.m. New York time from 11.0285 per dollar late yesterday. For the week, the peso is up 3.1 percent, the best performance against the dollar among the 16 most-traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg. This is the peso's biggest weekly gain against the dollar since the week ending Sept. 18, 1998.

``Now that the election is out of the way, the underlying fundamentals are pretty positive,'' said Jack McIntyre, who helps oversee $15 billion of international debt at Brandywine Global Investment Management in Philadelphia. ``The peso could go back to the highs in February.''

The peso may strengthen to as much as 10.90 per dollar by next week based on expectations Calderon will de declared the victor, Ricardo Amorim, head of Latin America Strategy at WestLB in New York, wrote in a report yesterday.

Still, a prolonged court battle with Lopez Obrador could lessen support for Calderon's administration, prompting the currency to weaken, Amorim wrote.

Benchmark Bond

The yield on Mexico's benchmark 8 percent peso-denominated bond due December 2015 fell for a second day, dropping 10 basis points, or 0.10 percentage point, to 8.54 percent, according to Santander Central Hispano SA. The price, which moves inversely to the yield, rose 0.62 centavo, to 96.51 centavo.

The yield on the government's 10-year bond has dropped 57 basis points this week, the largest weekly decline since the bond was first issued in January.

The election is ``certainly a positive for Mexico and Mexican bonds so we will continue to hold our Mexican issues,'' Bill Gross, who manages the world's biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California.

[NiccoBond]

FACTBOX-Mexico's Calderon: what he stands for

July 7 (Reuters) Conservative ruling party candidate
Felipe Calderon won Mexico's presidential election in an
extremely tight race, final official results showed.


Here are some of his main policy proposals:


ECONOMY


* Pro-business and pro-foreign investment. Proposes
maintaining the fiscal policies of President Vicente Fox but
wants to persuade businesses to open up jobs to young people
aged between 16 and 28 through one-year tax exemptions.


* Wants to boost economy by building a more extensive
highway and road network across Mexico and by making tourism a
priority.


* Proposes a lower and flat rate income tax, with no income
tax for workers on minimal salaries. Tax benefits to employers
who hire workers between the ages of 16 and 28.


ENERGY


* Backs complementary private investment by Mexican and
foreign companies in the natural gas, oil refining and
petrochemicals sectors.


* Wants state oil monopoly Pemex to form technology-sharing
strategic alliances with foreign oil majors, although state to
keep control. Aims to achieve self-sufficiency in natural gas.


* Backs further easing of Pemex's taxes so it has more to
invest, and to grant Pemex more autonomy. Says Pemex needs to
triple investment to restore oil reserves.


POVERTY


* Plans to tackle poverty by expanding public health
services, especially in rural areas, and providing universal
health insurance through public and private agencies, as well
as improving education in poor and indigenous communities.


* Promises to extend pension schemes for the elderly and to
stem illegal migration across the U.S. border through job
creation in housing and infrastructure.


* Cut the cost of agricultural seeds and fertilizer.


FOREIGN POLICY


* Proposes a very active foreign policy, with a firm voice
in multilateral organizations and a strong relationship with
the United States.


* Pledges not to be a pushover for Washington, however, and
opposes U.S. proposals to build a border wall and deploy
National Guard troops along the frontier. Says U.S. immigration
reform is crucial.


* Vows to defend rights of migrants in the United States by
setting up a special office to give them legal assistance. He
says NAFTA trade partners United States and Canada should help
promote Mexico's economic development to stem migration.


* A critic of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Calderon
would likely continue Fox's policy of aggressively supporting
free trade in the Americas.


CRIME


* Vows to use tough measures to combat crime, to clean up,
better train and better recruit police forces, to modernize the
justice system through oral trials and other measures already
proposed by the outgoing Fox.


* Plans to create a central data base for crime information
and, like Fox, backs a strong military role in fighting drug
trafficking.

[NiccoBond]

Currency Strategists: Peso Rally to Fade, Bank of America Says

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Mexican peso will fall 4.5 percent against the U.S. dollar by the end of September because investors have overestimated the support the currency will get from a newly elected government, Bank of America Corp. said.

Mexico's currency rose 4 percent in the past two weeks as investors bet Felipe Calderon will continue the economic policies of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, which has reduced inflation and slashed foreign debt. Investors bought pesos on expectations his support of free trade and fiscal restraint will buoy the economy.

The peso will erase those gains because Calderon's narrow margin of victory will hinder his ability to address economic issues, wrote Bank of America strategists Guillermo Estebanez in San Francisco and Lawrence Goodman in New York, in a July 6 research report.

``This new president is going to have a very divided Congress,'' Estebanez said in an interview. The peso will be more influenced by oil prices and market fluctuations overseas than by policies advocated during the election, Estebanez said. ``These are all external things.''

Bank of America said the peso may weaken to as low as 11.52 per dollar by Sept. 30, returning to the more than one-year low it set last month, from 10.9955 at 1 p.m. in Tokyo and 11.0098 in New York on July 7. The bank had forecast in May that it would fall to 11.41 by early July. The peso rose 2.9 percent last week after the July 2 election, and is still down 3.3 percent this year.

`Candidate of Continuity'

The Mexican economy grew at a 5.5 percent annual rate in the three months ended in March, the fastest since 2000, compared with 2.7 percent growth in the previous quarter.

Calderon is ``the candidate of continuity in every way,'' Estebanez said. He will likely resemble Fox in ``how he dealt with markets, how he dealt with the economy, how he dealt with budgets,'' Estebanez said.

The peso has fallen 15 percent during Fox's administration, which took office in November 2000.

``The authorities in either regime will likely remain increasingly tolerant of a weaker peso, which is showing signs of overvaluation and has resulted in Mexico's loss of penetration of the U.S. import market to China since 2002,'' the strategists wrote in the report.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the runner-up, will seek to have the election results declared invalid, claiming some polling stations had more ballots cast than registered voters and that monitors were missing at some locations, his top adviser said. Calderon received 243,934 more votes than Lopez Obrador, out of 40.9 million cast.

The peso will also weaken against the dollar as the interest-rate differential between the U.S. and Mexico continues to narrow, Bank of America said. The Federal Reserve has raised its overnight lending rate between banks four times this year to 5.25 percent, while Banco de Mexico has lowered rates four times to 7 percent.

Bank of America is forecasting that gap will shrink further as the Fed raises rates two more times this year to 5.75 percent while the Mexican rate remains unchanged.

[NiccoBond]

Mexico to Sell 30-Year Bond in 4Q, Garcia Tames Says


July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico will sell its first 30-year peso-denominated bond in the fourth quarter, part of a strategy to cut the nation's borrowing costs by shifting obligations into local currency, Deputy Finance Minister Alonso Garcia Tames said.

The plan reflects confidence in the economy and results of the July 2 presidential election, after two tallies showed governing party candidate Felipe Calderon won, he said. Yields on Mexico's peso bonds have dropped in the past two years as President Vicente Fox erased a budget deficit and tamed inflation. The cost of borrowing in dollars is climbing as U.S. yields rise.

``With the evolution we're seeing in the local and international markets, I think there's easily room for issuing this 30-year bond,'' Garcia Tames, 47, said in an interview in his wood- floored meeting room in Mexico City.

The government plans to initially auction about 1 billion pesos ($90.4 million) of the 30-year bonds and then sell more of the same securities every quarter, Garcia Tames said. The government expects to unveil specifics of the sale in September.

Mexico saved about $35 billion since Fox, 64, took office at the end of 2000 by replacing foreign debt with domestic securities and stretching out maturities, according to the Finance Ministry. The Mexican government's foreign-currency debt is equivalent to 8 percent of gross domestic product, the lowest in at least four decades, compared with 32 percent in 1995.

Foreign Investors

Garcia Tames said he expects foreign investors, who hold 11 percent of Mexico's 1.34 trillion pesos of domestic debt, to buy some of the 30-year bonds. The government is seeking to lure Asian investors by having its peso bonds added to Citigroup Inc.'s World Government Bond Index, which is widely used in the region, Gerardo Rodriguez, Mexico's public credit director, said in the same interview.

Mexico, unable to sell debt maturing in more than three months just a decade ago, attracted investors from around the world after eliminating its budget deficit, stabilizing the peso and reducing annual inflation to a record low of 3.3 percent in 2005. The government may post a surplus this year, the first since 1994, as high oil prices boost revenue, Garcia Tames said.

Fox's fiscal policy and a shrinking foreign-debt load have helped cut borrowing costs. The yield on Mexico's 8 percent bond due in 2023 has fallen to about 9 percent from just more than 11.5 percent two years ago. Garcia Tames said he expects the yields on local currency bonds to keep falling.

Bonds Fall

Today the yield on Mexico's longest peso bond due in 2024 rose 0.045 percentage point to 9.01 percent. The bond's price fell to 108.85 from 109.29, according to Santander Central Hispano SA. The 2024 bond has returned 0.7 percent this year to date, including reinvested interest.

In dollar-denominated bonds, the extra yield, or spread, investors demand to buy Mexican bonds instead of U.S. government debt has declined by more than two-thirds to 1.18 percentage point from 3.85 percentage point when Fox took office in December 2000, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Calderon's victory over opposition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the election will make it easier for the government to lure demand for a 30-year fixed-rate peso bond, said Roberto Sanchez-Dahl, who manages $500 million of emerging-market assets including Mexican peso debt at Federated Investment Management in Pittsburgh.

Fox Policies

Calderon, 43, vowed to stick to Fox's policies favoring of free trade and spending constraints. Lopez Obrador, 52, pledged to increase spending to help the nation's poor. He is challenging the results of the election -- which showed Calderon winning by 243,934 votes -- in court, alleging fraud and government interference. The court must decide the case by the end of August and name a new president by Sept. 6.

``It would certainly be much more difficult for Mexico to extend the yield curve under a Lopez Obrador scenario given the uncertainties about how he would make his economic policy decisions,'' said Sanchez-Dahl.

Mexico's 10-year benchmark bond yield posted its biggest weekly decline in more than two years after electoral authorities last week said Calderon won. The bonds reversed part of their gains this week, sending yields higher, on concern Calderon will lack support in congress to fulfill campaign promises to create jobs and stoke economic growth.

Still, a Calderon presidency is a better outcome for investors than the alternative, and the chances of Lopez Obrador overturning the results ``are small,'' Sanchez-Dahl said.

Because of both the election results and the rise in U.S. yields, investors are poised to increase holdings of peso- denominated debt, Garcia Tames said.

``Going forward we should see this improvement to be maintained and therefore people should start positioning themselves closer to their benchmarks, which would imply taking additional positions in the peso markets,'' he said.