KEY POINTS:
Issuance of eurokiwi and uridashi bonds to foreign investors picked up strongly in April and matched maturities, ensuring there was no strong outflow of New Zealand dollars that would have depressed the currency.
However, a couple of weak issuance months are expected in May and June as the maturities are light.
Westpac has reported there was NZ$917 million of new issues in April, just above the NZ$842 million of new maturities.
This is an improvement on March where only NZ$313 million were issued, compared with maturities of NZ$1.691 billion.
March issuance was the lowest in almost 4 years. But a settling of financial market conditions appears to have reassured the 'Belgian dentists and Japanese housewives' who invest in the bonds.
"The pattern of recent issuance suggests that overseas investors are content to roll existing investments, but are less interested in accumulating new positions," said Westpac market strategist Michael Gordon.
"Maturities are relatively light over the next few months, so we are likely to see a dip in issuance as well," Gordon said.
- INTEREST.CO.NZ
