HOW SWEET IT IS

 

"How sweet it is to be loved by you."

Those are the lines from an old James Taylor classic. And that's probably what the bureaucrats and politicians in Ecuador are humming today after their successful bond float.

If you're looking for more return on your investments, say, something like 7%, Ecuador's new US-dollar bonds are offering close to that as the tiny oil-producing South American country returns to the international debt trough. It's hardly their first trip there.

According to the Financial Times, Ecuador started marketing the bonds in London and New York last week and, should one be surprised, investors are gobbling them up. This is the country's first venture to the debt trough since is defaulted on more than $3 billion worth of debt in 2008.

As one market wag put it: "Emerging markets are again on the sweet spot." Buyers include insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and, yes, even individual investors. 

You can forget for the nonce about strange viruses and drug-resistant bacteria, famished yield is the newest global epidemic making the rounds today. 

So let's all hang around and see just how sweet it is.