Greed is good for gekkos

The Thursday before the election they yielded 215%. One week later they yielded 130%. In July they breached 80%, before jumping to 94% one week later. At the time of writing, the central bank had allowed them to come down to an average in the low 80s. Welcome to the Russian government’s domestic debt market, nicknamed the gekko market after its abbrevation GKO.

Not surprisingly, foreign investors have been desperate to get a piece of this volatile, high-yield action.