Bond traders will see more issues coming in a near future, as the Cabinet decided to ask for a CZK 6 bil. bond issue to cover losses of credit unions. Yet another CZK 5 bil. is meant to "compensate" farmers for spring drought and the state may need more as it apparently decided to "compensate" pension funds that own Vitkovice (near bankrupt steel-firm) defaulted bonds. Anybody interested in "compensation" for whatever should contact the nearest government official…
By the way, the (supposedly right-of-center and opposition) ODS refused to support the proposed lowering of corporate taxes, due to the opposition agreement, they say.
After previous losses, the Czech koruna held steady on Wednesday. The euro is about 35.60 CZK/EUR and the dollar gained 4 hallers to 38.55 CZK/USD. As has become standard, the market is eyeing the central bank and the central bank remains silent. Therefore, expect more of the same nervousness in near future, at least until the central bank discusses the monetary policy issues next Thursday.
Wednesday morning was bearish again for Czech bonds, and though whole afternoon was in bullish mood after huge short-covering, we still remain bearish as there are no significant buyers on the market. Long government bonds 6.30/07 and 6.40/10 reached another historical lows and the correction on those two were only symbolical, same as on MoF 6.75/05. It seems like those big amount issues have much more liquidity and this pushes the prices that lower, with expectations of bad bearish economic data and new issues coming in next months. However, Wednesday's prices ended up almost the same as Tuesday's closes after selling and buying wave.
Current benchmark prices: MoF 6.75/05 99.55-85 (+5 bps), MoF 6.30/07 96.00-30 (-15 bps), MoF 6.40/10 95.90-20 (-10 bps).
(Ondrej Schneider and Dalimil Vyskovsky)