The bond market was marginally firmer on Monday afternoon, ahead of US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen’s meeting with congress. Yellen was expected to provide some clues on the pace of interest-rate increases this year. An increase in interest rates could strengthen the dollar, resulting in increased investment appetite for US fixed-income securities. Locally, January consumer price inflation data, to be released on Wednesday, was expected to decrease to 6.6% from December’s 6.8%. Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) analyst John Cairns said despite a positive medium-term view, inflation would remain somewhat sticky for the time being, with a turn in the inflation cycle being expected. At 3.30pm, the bid on the benchmark R186 was 8.725% from Friday’s 8.77% while that of the R207 was at 7.855% from 7.89%. The bid on the US 10-year treasury note was weaker at 2.4438%‚ from 2.4081%.
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