MARKETSNOVEMBER 22, 2011, 11:00 A.M. ET
Big Selloff Hits Europe Bond Markets
By NICK CAWLEY And NEELABH CHATURVEDI
LONDON—Euro-zone bond markets suffered another sell-off Tuesday, with investors especially dumping short-term debt after Spain was forced to pay a heavy price to auction its latest brace of Treasury bills.
The Spanish Treasury was forced to pay a euro-era record 5.11% yield on three-month Treasury bills at auction, more than double the rate paid at last month's auction. By way of comparison, to access the short-term debt market Spain now must pay more than Greece paid at its last three-month auction a week ago.
Spain also paid an average yield of 5.227% for the new six-month Spanish T-bills, up from 3.302% and now higher than what Belgium currently pays on its 30-year government bonds.
Spain last week had to offer a yield of nearly 7% on a new 10-year government bond auction. Market participants view the price on the 10-year bond as unsustainable over time. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal were all forced into seeking external assistance when yields climbed past and stayed above that line.
The spike in yields fanned fears that the country will find it unsustainable to raise funds in the market if the trend persists. The result underscored concerns that more financially weakened euro-zone governments may soon be priced out of the capital markets.
Today's Spanish bill auction didn't go too well, suggesting that the international investment community is still walking away from the euro. Heard on the Street writer Richard Barley discusses the options for the new government, the EU and the ECB.
The cost of insuring European government debt against default using credit-default swaps shot up to record levels as concerns about the euro-zone debt crisis and U.S. deficit-reduction plans continue to spook market participants and subdue activity in the European primary bond market. Default insurance on French, Belgian and Spanish debt leapt above record closing levels Tuesday as bond yields in the region climbed.
More
Monti Says Italy's Reform Plans Are On Track
Heard on the Street: Euro Zone Risks Doing Too Little Too Late
French bond yields also spiked sharply in a sign that the debt crisis was continuing to spread to larger, top-rated countries. A continued rise in French bond yields would put the country's coveted triple-A rating in peril and risk derailing efforts to contain tensions.
The 10-year Italian bond yields 6.75%, while the yield on similar-dated Spanish bonds was at 6.6%, up 0.11 percentage point and 0.07 percentage point, respectively.
Market watchers observed that the moves might have been magnified by thin trading volume. One trader noted that while the spike in Italian yields was due to "selling of specific short-dated issues ... intervention by the ECB was unable to stem the sharp rise in yields."
Belgium was also in the spotlight Tuesday with the yield on the 10-year hitting 5.04%, 0.26 percentage point higher on the session, a day after Elio di Rupo, the French-speaking socialist currently leading negotiations, asked the king if he could resign.
The yield on the French 10-year bond also moved sharply higher, adding 0.12 percentage point to trade at 3.56%. Worryingly, French bonds have started to move more in line with bonds issued by the so-called peripheral euro-zone countries rather than safe-haven German bunds.
"The warning shots of a rating outlook revision in France have grown frequent and louder," said David Schnautz, fixed-income strategist at Commerzbank.
France is the second-largest contributor to the euro-zone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, and if Paris loses its triple-A rating, the EFSF's firepower may be crimped or it may have to ask other triple-A countries to stump up more guarantees, something they won't be keen to do.
The Spanish auction came amid a broad sell-off of European government debt over the past week. Market participants are questioning the European Union's ability to restore confidence in its management of the debt crisis and keep borrowing costs from spiraling to unsustainable levels.
Excepting Ireland, Greece and Portugal, who lost access to the market last year, other euro-zone governments need to borrow roughly €800 billion ($1.08 billion) in 2012 to repay maturing debts and fund their operations, according to Barclays Capital estimates. But international institutional investors are increasingly rejecting all but the safest-looking European nations that want to borrow.
The European Commission on Wednesday will propose common euro-zone bonds, or "stability bonds," to seal the widening cracks between stronger and weaker euro-zone government bond markets, pooling regional risks. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel has in the past rejected mutualizing euro-zone risk through joint bonds, and rejected the idea again on Tuesday.
"Euro bonds have just become fashionable again," Ms. Merkel told a conference of the German Employers Federation, adding that European Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn earlier Tuesday had defended their introduction to the same audience.
However, Ms. Merkel cautioned that creating a "union of liabilities" that common euro bonds would represent could only be discussed once the competitiveness in the euro zone is less divergent. Euro-zone countries need to be willing to change the current European Union treaty in order to have more efficient means of tackling the debt crisis, Ms. Merkel said, adding that such a treaty change needn't take 10 years to become a reality. "In exceptional situations you need to be ready for exceptional steps."
The ECB has been supporting the Italian and Spanish government bond markets by buying that paper in secondary markets, an emergency measure it says must remain temporary. The central bank so far has refused to uncork a massive and open-ended purchasing program many analysts believe is the only measure that can still contain the debt crisis.
The ECB settled €7.986 billion in government bonds on the secondary market in the week ending Nov. 15, up from €4.478 billion the previous week, new ECB figures showed. EU officials also remain at odds over how to substantially increase the financial firepower of the EFSF.
—Emese Bartha in Frankfurt, Bernd Radowitz in Berlin and Art Patnaude and Ben Edwards in London contributed to this article.
Write to Emese Bartha at
emese.bartha@dowjones.com and Neelabh Chaturvedi at
neelabh.chaturvedi@dowjones.com