Treasury Inflation Protected Securities are lagging behind conventional U.S. government debt for a third month before the U.S. sells $15 billion of TIPS today.

Inflation notes have handed investors a 0.5 percent loss since the end of October, versus a 0.2 percent slide for the broader market, Bank of America Merrill Lynch data show. Fidelity Investments said the odds of a strong increase in inflation in 2013 are low, though investors can guard against a pickup in coming years. The House of Representatives voted to temporarily suspend the U.S. borrowing limit, a step toward averting a delay in payments that threatened the economy.

“Inflation isn’t a concern now,” said Shinji Kunibe, chief portfolio manager for fixed-income investment at Nissay Asset Management Corp. in Tokyo, which oversees the equivalent of $58 billion. “The debt ceiling problem was merely postponed, and fiscal tightening will put downward pressure on the economy,” weighing on bond rates, he said.

Benchmark 10-year yields were unchanged at 1.82 percent as of 11:52 a.m. in Tokyo, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader. The price of the 1.625 percent note due in November 2022 was 98 7/32.

Japan’s 10-year rate held at 0.735 percent. The nation’s government debt market has gained 0.4 percent this month, according to the Bank of America figures.

IMF Forecast

The world economy will expand 3.5 percent this year, less than the 3.6 percent forecast in October, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday.

In the U.S., “underlying economic conditions remain on track,” the IMF said as it reduced its forecast for the world’s largest economy to 2 percent from 2.1 percent in 2013 and raised it 0.1 percentage point to 3 percent next year.

U.S. consumer prices advanced 1.7 percent in December from a year earlier, based on the most recent data from the Labor Department. The average over the past two decades is 2.5 percent.

So-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, increased 1.9 percent. The 20-year average is 2.3 percent.

Central bank efforts to spur economic growth may bring about higher-than-expected inflation, according to Jamie Stuttard, the head of international bond portfolio management at Fidelity.

Inflation Protection

“There is not a very high probability of a strong rise in core inflation for 2013,” Stuttard wrote on Fidelity’s website yesterday. “The price of protection against inflationary scenarios may change significantly in coming years, given uncertainty about the long-term consequences of easy monetary policy across the globe.”

Investments including corporate bonds, leveraged loans and currencies can protect against rising costs in the economy, according to Fidelity, the Boston-based fund company that manages $1.64 trillion.

The Federal Reserve is purchasing $85 billion of government and mortgage debt each month, seeking to put downward pressure on borrowing costs.

The Bank of Japan is purchasing bonds and other assets, and it plans to follow the Fed by switching to open-ended debt purchases next year.

The European Central Bank has expressed a willingness to use the ECB’s resources to buy the bonds of nations that ask for aid.

Negative Yields

U.S. 10-year TIPS yielded minus 0.77 percent. The last six 10-year TIPS sales since January 2012 have drawn negative rates.

The difference between yields on 10-year notes and same- maturity TIPS, a gauge of trader expectations for consumer prices over the life of the debt, widened to 2.55 percentage points earlier this week. It was the most since November. The average over the past decade was 2.19 percentage points.

Treasuries rose yesterday as the House voted to suspend the borrowing limit. The measure will go to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said lawmakers will pass the bill unchanged and send it to President Barack Obama.

Global investors say the state of the U.S.’s finances is the greatest risk to the world economy, with the government within weeks of reaching its borrowing limit, according to a Bloomberg survey of investors.