Yield mania gives much needed break to indebted emerging-market countries

Emerging-market countries have relied this year on short-term local-currency debt as the pandemic drove investors to the notes for safety. Now, turbo-charged by Joe Biden’s election and signs of a vaccine breakthrough, bonds with longer maturities are attracting buyers again.

US elections have revived the yield hunt, granting much-needed breathing space to governments in developing economies. They face the equivalent of about $3 trillion in local debt maturing next year after a borrowing binge in short-term bonds that were mostly bought by local banks in the absence of international investors.

Investor appetite for longer securities would ease the fiscal pain of emerging