Italy’s borrowing costs hovered close to 7pc on Wednesday, ahead of a final test this year that will see the country sell up to €20bn (£16.67bn) in government bonds.
Yields on ten-year government bonds crept up one basis point to 6.878pc on Wednesday morning, hours before the first major debt auction since the European Central Bank (ECB) offered €489bn in cheap three year loans to eurozone banks in an attempt to prevent a full-scale credit crunch.
Italy will sell €9bn of six-month debt, as well as up to €2.5bn of two-year bonds on Wednesday. Another sale of three, six and ten year bonds will be held on Thursday.
Another day of light trading saw stock markets open broadly flat. The FTSE 100 in London opened up 0.2pc at 5,524.2 on the first day of trading since the Christmas holiday. Elsewhere in Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris opened up 0.15pc at 3,107.10, while Frankfurt’s DAX edged up 0.16pc to 5,880.10. The FTSE Mib in Milan fell 0.13pc to 14,936.35.
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Afternoon Updates:
12:08 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Reynolds: The moose and the modern welfare state
12:13 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Euro zone: Little to cheer about
12:16 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — FTSE 100 falls as eurozone fears knock Wall Street
12:19 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — UK jobs outlook is the ‘worst for 20 years’
12:25 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Boom time for workers at the mining giants
12:27 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Japanese industrial output falls
12:37 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Delingpole: Occupy are not the solution: they embody the problem
12:43 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Lynch: 12 months of turmoil
12:48 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — 2012: make-or-break year for the euro
12:59 pm EST, December 28th, 2011 — Interview: ‘It Is a Mistake To Pursue a United States of Europe’
I repeat — The EU has no way out of this mess other than to break up. The learned judge in the last link has it correct. 2012 will decide the matter.
The “dream” is dead.