Bloomberg News
Bank of America Cuts Russia Bond Recommendation on Ukraine Risks
Bank of America Corp. cut its
recommendation on Russia’s foreign debt on concern that an
escalation of the crisis in Ukraine would lead to further
sanctions.
Russian external bonds, which had been raised to overweight
on March 24 by Bank of America, were downgraded to marketweight
today. The yield on Russia’s 2030 dollar bond rose 20 basis
points, or 0.2 percentage point, to 4.69 percent at 12:34 p.m.
in New York. Pro-Russian separatists seized administration buildings in Ukraine’s east as the government in Kiev accused President Vladimir Putin of stoking unrest. Protesters with Russian flags stormed offices in the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk, where demonstrators called for a referendum to join Russia and for the boycott of May 25 presidential elections. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said today that Russia was trying to split his nation.
“We think that market can easily perceive such development as escalation of Ukrainian crisis,” Vladimir Osakovskiy, chief economist for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, wrote in a note today. Russia’s open involvement in Eastern Ukraine “will most likely be unacceptable for the U.S. and EU, potentially triggering costly economic sanctions against Russia.”
The U.S. and the European Union have slapped sanctions on members of Putin’s inner circle and urged his government to pull back its troops in the worst standoff since the Cold War. They have said sanctions may intensify if Russia tries to destabilize Ukraine by using trade and other measures.
To contact the reporter on this story: Halia Pavliva in New York at hpavliva@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tal Barak Harif at tbarak@bloomberg.net Rita Nazareth, Marie-France Han
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