Greek Bonds Slump on Budget Concern; Bunds Rise on Safety Bid
By Lukanyo Mnyanda - Oct 29, 2010 2:07 PM GMT+0200 Fri Oct 29 12:07:51 GMT 2010
Greek bonds fell, leading weekly declines by peripheral European securities on concern the nation will struggle to meet deficit targets, pushing the debt’s extra yield over German securities to the highest level in a month.
German bunds gained on concern a proposed European Union permanent debt-crisis mechanism may penalize investors, encouraging demand for safety. Portuguese bonds were headed for a second weekly decrease as a survey showed the opposition Social Democrats increased their poll lead over Prime Minister
Jose Socrates’ Socialist Party.
“The periphery remains vulnerable,” said Patrick Jacq, a senior fixed-income strategist at BNP Paribas SA in Paris. “Greece is still suffering.”
The yield on Greece’s 10-year bond rose 29 basis points, or 0.29 percentage point, to 10.69 percent at 1 p.m. in London. The extra yield, or spread, that investors demand to hold the securities instead of benchmark German bonds touched 814 basis points, the widest level since Sept. 30 based on closing prices. The spread hadn’t been above 800 basis points since Oct. 1.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel won European Union backing for a rewrite of EU treaties to create a permanent debt-crisis mechanism by 2013 to prevent a repeat of the Greece-led shock that jolted the euro.
Merkel’s crisis-resolution plan foresees an extension of debt maturities, suspension of interest payments and a waiver on creditors’ claims, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported yesterday, citing an unidentified government official.
‘Default Regulation’
Such a proposal might be seen as “a step toward government default regulation,” said
Christoph Kind, who helps invest about $20 billion as head of asset allocation at Frankfurt Trust in Frankfurt. “The market is pricing in the danger that this is going to be realized at some point.”
Greece is likely to default within the next three years because budget-cutting measures won’t be enough to reduce the nation’s sovereign-debt burden, Pacific Investment Management Co. Chief Executive Officer
Mohamed A. El-Erian said at a New York conference this week.
Portugal’s 10-year bond yield dropped four basis points to 5.90 percent after rising earlier today. The spread over similar German securities was 336 basis points after earlier climbing above 350 basis points, the widest since Oct. 14.
A survey published today by Portugal’s Catholic University indicated 40 percent backing from voters for the Social Democratic Party, 3 percentage points higher than in a June survey, Diario de Noticias reported today. The Socialists had 26 percent support, 8 percentage points less than in the previous poll, according to Diario.
Budget Proposals
The Social Democrats will consider any proposals the government may still make regarding its 2011 budget, leader
Pedro Passos Coelho said in a conference today. Prime Minister Jose Socrates said yesterday the government would make an effort to reach an agreement.
“There are a lot of event risks coming up, with the Portuguese budget and the Greek local elections,” said
Orlando Green, assistant director of capital-markets strategy at Credit Agricole SA in London. “There’s a build-up of immediate risks that the markets are nervous about. In terms of the EU, this brings something else into the ball game, which the markets will be looking at.”
German 10-year bund, Europe’s benchmark security, gained today, pushing the yield down one basis point to 2.55 percent. The yield was still headed for its first back-to-back monthly gains since May 2009. Bunds were supported by speculation that the Federal Reserve will resume buying debt.
Peripheral Nations
Debt of the peripheral nations gained earlier this month as optimism that the region’s recovery would be sustained eased concern that the nations would default.
German bonds have lost 1.3 percent this month, compared with a 0.5 percent decrease for U.S. Treasuries, according to indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies. Portugal’s securities gained 2.7 percent, while those of Greece returned 0.7 percent.
Euro-area countries sold 70 billion euros ($97 billion) of bonds in October, meaning they have covered 90 percent of their funding needs for the year, according to UniCredit SpA.
The new supply compared with 90 billion euros in September and pushed total sales for the year so far to 870 billion euros,
Chiara Cremonesi, a market strategist at UniCredit in London, wrote in a client note today.
(Bloomberg)