Egypt's 5-year, 10-year treasury bond yields jump at Monday's auction

CAIRO: Egypt's 5-year and 10-year treasury bond yields jumped at Monday's auction, data from the central bank showed, hours after the central bank devalued the pound in a special foreign currency auction, as bankers expect an imminent rate hike.

Egypt's central bank devalued the pound on Monday and said it would move to a more flexible exchange rate policy in an effort to rebalance markets and ease a foreign exchange shortage that had stifled business activity and hit confidence.

The move raised expectations among bankers and economists that the central bank would raise interest rates at its next monetary policy meeting on March 17 and that has resulted in higher bidding at Monday's treasury bond auction, bankers said. "We bid aggressively higher today because we expect a big hike at Thursday's meeting," one banker told Reuters.

The yield on the 5-year treasury bond jumped to 15.050 percent from 13.655 percent at the last auction on Feb.15. The yield on the 10-year treasury bond jumped to 17.099 percent from 15.999 percent at the last auction on Feb. 29.