Chart of the day: Italian bonds back over 6%
This Bloomberg chart shows how the Italians have suffered in the sovereign debt crisis. While it doesn’t show the recent move above 6%, Italian 10-year bonds have indeed just moved over the 6% yield level. The ECB is the difference for Italy in this crisis. But the ECB simply will not buy more bonds as doing so takes the pressure off debtor governments to rein in spending, is seen as quasi-fiscal policy, and puts the ECB’s capital position at risk.
Andy Lees at UBS interprets this by saying:
10 year Italian yields back at 6% after German coalition sources said the EU summit will not reach any agreement of EFSF leveraging. All that heavy lifting done by the ECB now been undone. This should not be a surprise as the German SDP – (opposition party but the party Merkel has been relying on) – said in the Der Spiegel this morning that any such deal would need parliamentary approval.
Again, expect this to get worse before policy opinion is galvanized. And that’s not bullish for the euro zone economy.
Question: was Dexia the canary in the coalmine?
A large bank failure of that sort is breathtaking. Weeks before, no one was talking about Dexia as the weakest link. It passed the stress tests with flying colours. It was even touted as having the highest Tier 1 capital ratios in Europe. Then, suddenly it was in all kinds of trouble and simply collapsed.
It seems to me that we risk a true Armageddon scenario here from dithering.
What if the ECB were to adopt the same accountancy rules as the FED? The Fed counts it’s losses as a liability to the treasury.
https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/21/us-usa-fed-accounting-idUSTRE70K6OK20110121
Morning Ed , italian bond yield crossing 6 percent coincided with yesterday confusion as to what if anything come forth from this weekend’s EU Summit , the divergence between france and Germany as to how to achieve leverage with the EFSF and growing concerns that the latest discussion on bank recap seems minimalistic as to the amounts needed . As to the EFSF , what are your thoughts regarding the latest Rube Goldberg scheme de jour , that being combining the EFSF and ESM ? As former is a temporary vehicle and the latter the so called permanent scheme ( I would also note German concern as to whether the ESM is even constitutionally correct , so to speak ) , how would this work ? Thanks ?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-20/eu-said-to-mull-wielding-1-3-trillion-as-franco-german-discord-mars-talks.html