Italy's Shot of Southern Discomfort
The euro-zone bailout slowed the Greek meltdown. But it may simply have moved the pain elsewhere and unwittingly painted a bull's-eye on a much bigger target: Italy.
Italian bonds are suffering. The yield spread between 10-year Italian and German government bonds widened to 1.58 percentage points on Wednesday, wider than before the €750 billion ($917.7 billion) euro-zone rescue plan was unveiled. Credit-default swaps on Italian government debt are now at a record, with $10 million of insurance costing $248,000 a year.
On one level, that seems unjustified. Italy has weathered the crisis well. The deterioration in its credit-worthiness is small compared with what has happened in Spain, Portugal, Greece or Ireland.
The financial crisis will push Italian debt up to 117.8% of GDP by 2011 from 103.5% in 2007, according to Moody's Investors Service. That isn't far above the level of 12 years ago. In contrast, Spain's debt will rise by 37.8 percentage points of GDP in the same period, and Ireland's, by 71.1 percentage points.
Crucially, the Italian primary budget position—stripping out interest payments—is balanced, and the costs it has borne to support banks during the crisis have been minimal. Italy also has lower levels of household debt than Spain, for example, and the government has approved concrete measures for the next two years to rein in the budget.
But that relative conservatism partly reflects the fact that it entered the crisis with debt levels above those of Greece and was unable to dole out cash as liberally as other governments. Meanwhile, a distorted market and a lack of detail on the euro-zone bailout mechanism are conspiring against it.For investors worried about making bets against an intervening European Central Bank, which has focused on buying Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds, the obvious bet is against Italy. Meanwhile, some investors may simply want to scale back their exposure to all debt from so-called peripheral European countries.
Investors can't ignore Italy's heavy debt load, even if it isn't rising fast.
A key problem is rollover risk. Italy is set to issue €241 billion of government bonds this year, of which €170 billion covers redemptions, according to ING. Market access is vital, and interest rates need to be kept as low as possible to avoid the deficit widening further—creating the risk of a vicious cycle.
Italian bond spreads and credit-default swaps are now the ones to watch. With nearly €1.5 trillion of debt outstanding, the Italian government-debt market is the third-largest in the world behind the U.S. and Japan, according to Deutsche Bank. That isn't a market the euro zone can afford to lose control of.