South African Rand, Brazil Pension Saga Top Emerging-Market Bill

Emerging-market investors can almost always count on South Africa to keep them on their toes these days.
Rand-denominated bonds will trade Monday for the first time since S&P Global Ratings lowered the country’s local-currency debt to junk last week. Elsewhere in emerging markets, Brazil’s government is seeking to drum up support for the pension overhaul, Mexico will nominate a new central bank governor and India will release third-quarter economic data.
South Korea and Israel head a list of central banks setting interest rates. Policy makers in Angola, Ghana, Kazakhstan and Mauritius are also due to hold meetings.
Domestic bonds and the rand, among the worst performers in emerging markets this year, are likely to decline on Monday after S&P cut the nation’s local-currency debt to junk and Moody’s Investors Service warned it may do the same.
The yield on South Africa’s rand-denominated bonds due December 2026 has risen almost 80 basis points this quarter, the most since the three months ended December 2015.
India
Third-quarter economic data will show how quickly India recovered from a slowdown caused by a partial cash ban late last year. Gross domestic product increased 6.5 percent year-on-year, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists and analysts, from 5.7 percent in the three months through June.
Mexico
Investors will keep a close eye on who will be nominated as central bank governor as Augustin Carstens prepares to leave at the end of the month. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for the benchmark interest rate to remain unchanged at 76 percent until the second quarter of 2018. But traders on Thursday increased bets on a rate hike after Mexico’s inflation unexpectedly climbed in the first half of November.
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