Hard life for Italian government bonds, including those who until yesterday had never disappointed.
The 14th issue of the new Btp Italia is off to a bad start maturing in 2022. The first day of the offer, intended for retail investors, confirms the period of difficulty that all Italian bonds are experiencing due to the political uncertainty afflicting the country and the battle with the European Union that the Lega Government M5s has decided to embark on the Maneuver.
No scaremongering: this is only the first day of emission and until November 21st (22nd it will be the institutional turn) there is still all the time necessary to recover, but the cold start does not bode well. The data speak for themselves: on the first day of issue the Btp Italia has collected subscriptions for 481 million euros with around 15 thousand contracts, a figure that represents a third of what the Mef had collected in the previous issue (May 2018), when at the end of the first day of the offer of the security expiring in May 2026 it had collected subscriptions for 2,3 billion.
“There is little to say, the reception so far has been rather cold”, a dealer from Milan tells Reuters. A second dealer underlines how it is a delicate week for Italy also for the evolution of the confrontation with Brussels on the manoeuvre.
"This year the value of Italian government bonds fell by around 20%, losses that make families more prudent,” recalled an analyst speaking to the news agency.
Even the Btp Italia, an instrument created in 2012 precisely for the purpose of conveying national savings on our government bonds, therefore seems to have become a risky bet for investors.
It should be emphasized that the negative news on the first day of issue of the BTP Italia are not the only ones that arrived today. In fact, in the morning Bankitalia released data relating to the balance of payments, certifying that in September, despite a clear slowdown, the flight of foreign investors from our BTPs has continued. “In the face of substantially nil direct investments in Italy, non-residents sold Italian portfolio securities for 1,6 billion (of which 1,5 in public bonds)”, writes via Nazionale.
In the first 9 months of the year, sales of government bonds by foreign investors reached the 26,4 billion euros.
In the meantime it spread reached 318 basis points, while yields on 3,562-year bonds rose to XNUMX%.
(Last update: 18.290 on 19 November)
