German bunds edge tad higher after August producer price index disappoints markets

The German bunds edged tad higher during European trading session Friday after the country’s producer price index (PPI) for the month of August, disappointed market participants, going into negative territory from the prior reading in July.

The German 10-year bond yield, which move inversely to its price, remained tad 1/2 basis point down at -0.507 percent, the yield on 30-year note slipped 1 basis point to 0.020 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year hovered around -0.703 percent by 09:50GMT.

Germany’s PPI figures, which fell short of expectations in August and further supported our view that pipeline pressures remain very weak across the euro area. In particular, producer prices fell 0.5 percent m/m in August, to leave the annual rate down 0.8ppt to 0.3 percent y/y, a near-three-year low, Daiwa Capital Markets reported.

Unsurprisingly, this principally reflected lower energy prices, which fell 0.3 percent y/y following a rise of more than 2 percent y/y previously. Indeed, when excluding energy, producer price inflation was down just 0.1ppt to 0.6 percent y/y, nevertheless still the lowest since October 2016, the report added.

Meanwhile, the German DAX remained steady at 12,461.12 by 10:00GMT.