JOHANNESBURG – Emerging-market bonds were supposed to be dragged down this year as central banks moved toward withdrawing stimulus. Instead, the best-performing global debt was all from developing nations.Sovereign bonds issued by South Africa, China, Indonesia, India and Croatia topped the rankings of 46 markets around the world in 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg through last week.They alone managed to shrug off the biggest annual jump in US Treasury yields since 2013, a shock that was powerful enough to upend currency carry trades and emerging-market stocks.The positive returns generated by the five markets should give investors at least some confidence the Federal Reserve will be able to wind down asset purchases and start to raise interest rates without triggering a spike in global volatility.A deeper look into 2021 performance shows the top performers have mostly fallen in price, but coupon returns were high enough to offset these losses.Emerging-market bonds as a whole have […]
SA bonds delivered world’s best performance in 2021-beating China, India
