MUMBAI: Indian federal bond yields were wedged in a thin range on Monday amid lack of fresh triggers, with details of this week's $2.5 billion debt sale and the central bank's buyback papers awaited for direction.
At 11:15 a.m. (0545 GMT), the new 10-year bond yield was 2 basis points (bps) higher at 8.85 percent, after moving in an 8.82-8.86 percent band so far.
Total volume on the central bank's electronic trading platform was at a low 17.5 billion rupees ($339 million) compared with 35 billion to 45 billion rupees normally dealt in the first two hours of trade.
"The market is definitely going to be rangebound in the absence of new triggers in the near term. The auction papers due today evening and the OMO (open market operation) papers will be of utmost importance for direction," said Paresh Nayar, head of fixed income and forex trading at First Rand Bank.
The Reserve Bank of India had said late last Wednesday it would conduct open market operations (OMO) to buyback upto 100 billion rupees worth bonds on Nov. 24. Details of the papers to be repurchased are awaited.
"The 10-year bond will hold in a 8.80 to 8.85 percent band today. Not much expected as such as traders will look to sell even on small rallies," a senior trader with a primary dealership said.
State governments will sell 58.60 billion rupees worth 10-year bonds on Tuesday while the federal government will auction 80 billion rupees of treasury bills on Wednesday.
The government is also scheduled to sell 130 billion rupees of bonds on Friday, details of which will be announced after market hours on Monday.
However, most of the supplies would be offset by the OMO and treasury bill redemptions worth 120 billion rupees due this week, helping keep the pressure off rates.
The benchmark five-year swap was up 2 bps at 7.29 percent, while the one-year rate was 3 bps higher at 8.09 percent.
Traders would continue to watch the euro and regional equity markets for gauging cues on the evolving macro-economic situation globally.
The euro held steady in Asia on Monday after a short-squeeze rally late last week as news of an election victory for Spain's centre-right opposition was greeted with cautious optimism.
Greece's new prime minister Lucas Papademos is scheduled to meet the EU's top leaders Jose Manuel Barroso and Herman van Rompuy on Monday and the Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday. He has to convince the IMF and the EU to give Athens 8 billion euros it needs to avoid a mid-December default.
Across the Atlantic, the US congressional deficit-reduction committee has up to Wednesday's midnight deadline to come up with a deal to slash $1.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years.
"Market will keep an eye on the euro zone and US fiscal management meet," Shakti Satapathy, a fixed-income strategist at A.K. Capital wrote in a note.
"That coupled with the winter session of parliament in India where the decisions on FDI (foreign direct investment) in retail and pension sectors are due, would most likely be the soft triggers," he said, adding, "10-year bond to hold in a 8.78 percent to 8.95 percent range this week."
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