Italy is launching a new four-year BTP Italia (an inflation-linked bond aimed at retail investors) between 15 April and 18 April.

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One example, the iShares Global Inflation-Linked Bond Fund ( GTIP), seeks results that correspond to the BofA Merrill Lynch Global Diversified Inflation-Linked Index.

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The water company Severn Trent is raising money by offering an inflation-linked corporate bond to the public, rather than to professional investors.

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If you compare the yield on conventional bonds with the yield on the index-linked Treasury bond that matures in 2028, the result is an implied inflation rate of 2.4%.

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But much other borrowing, by both firms and households, is linked to bond yields, which hang more on market expectations about future interest rates and inflation than on changes in short-term rates.

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The same phenomenon can be observed in the index-linked government-bond market, where both interest payments and the maturity value are pegged to inflation.

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Indeed, some weakness in the high-yield market in the second half of March was linked to rising Treasury yields as bond prices declined.

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Those rates also would be linked to the 10-year Treasury bond levels and therefore would likely increase in future years.

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The African Development Bank has issued eight Eurobonds denominated in, or linked to, African currencies, starting with a bond in Botswanan pulas in 2005.

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What linked them, though, was not only a convivial aesthetic bond, but also a keen business acumen.

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