Italy auctioned €11B of Treasury bills today. Yield on the 10-year bond shed 17 basis points to 5.51% this morning US time even though the demand was not low at 1.5 times. Italy’s one-year borrowing cost rose for the first time since the their Prime Minister Mario Monti took office last November, signaling the return of the sovereign bond market tension. The cost of insuring Italian debt against default is on the rise, five-year Italian credit default swap (CDS) rose 11 basis points to 439. Last week, Monti sent the Italian Parliament a plan to rejuvenate Italy’s labor market, and this is his fourth major attempt to make Italy more competitive. The country has a 9.3% unemployment rate and is going through its fourth recession since 2001; it’s a beautiful country, and dysfunctional.Stay tuned for more news and updates, I’m Julia Sun for the Financial News Network.
