On Monday morning, on the Mts secondary market of government bonds, yields on ten-year BTPs they scored a new all-time low. For the first time, the interest rate fell below the 0,6% threshold, marking a new record at 0,57%.
The downturn helped to cool further the spread compared to German Bunds with the same maturity, which decreased up to 120 basis points, from 123 at the last closure.
The decline in yields comes on the day the Treasury started the second placement of Btp Futura, the vouchers designed to finance the financial maneuvers related to the Covid emergency.
Yet, the phenomenon does not only concern Italy. In the same minutes, interest rates on Spanish and Portuguese government bonds they almost zeroed, reaching 0,08% and 0,07% respectively.
If you exclude the Greece (whose 0,82-year pays XNUMX%), in the rest of Europe, yields on public bonds with a maturity of 10 are in negative territory. It means that not only do the States pay no interest on the money they borrow, but they actually earn money, being able to keep a small part of the sums collected.
Here is the ranking of the rates:
- Germany -0,63%;
- Holland -0,53%;
- Switzerland -0,51%;
- Denmark -0,50%;
- Austria -045%;
- Finland -0,43%;
- Belgium -0,41%;
- France -0,37%;
- Ireland -0,30%;
- Sweden -0,03%.
Of course, similar yields do not reflect the creditworthiness or accounting soundness of individual countries. The system is drugged by interventions by the European Central Bank, which, to help governments deal with the Covid emergency, added to the "normal" quantitative easing an additional program for the purchase of government bonds on the secondary market, known as pep.
Meanwhile, on the currency side, the euro remains strong on the dollar, broadly stable compared to Friday's close (at 1,188). At the same time, the single currency is worth 123,1 yen (from 122,8 on Friday).
