BRIC Dollar Bonds Beat Ruble Debt as Medvedev Frets

[Enivid]

For all the criticism of the U.S. currency by leaders of the so-called BRIC nations, dollar bonds sold by the largest emerging-market countries are outperforming debt traded in reais, rubles and yuan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for a “more diversified” monetary system yesterday to reduce dependency on the world’s reserve currency. The four leaders met in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where they planned to discuss buying each other’s bonds and foreign exchange, said Arkady Dvorkovich, Medvedev’s top economic adviser.

“It’s not up to politicians to determine which currency will be the world reserve currency,” said Lutz Karpowitz, a currency strategist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “In the end the market decides it.”

Dollar bonds sold by China earned 11.4 percent in the past year, more than double the 4.6 percent for debt in yuan, JPMorgan Chase & Co. indexes show. Brazil’s U.S. currency bonds returned 3.6 percent as real-based notes lost 4.9 percent, and Russia’s dollar bonds outperformed with a 1.9 percent loss compared with a 7 percent drop in ruble debt. India doesn’t have dollar-denominated debt.

From Bloomberg News.