In match of the spread, Italy comes back and takes the lead again over Spain. Then it settles down slightly and returns to parity. After the vertical collapse following the ECB's maxi-loans to European banks, today the yield differential between 10-year BTPs and the corresponding German Bunds stabilized in the afternoon at around 310 basis points, with a 5-year yield just under 310% . In the same minutes, the Madrid spread was traveling on exactly the same value: XNUMX. But for a few minutes the overtaking is reality, albeit limited: 308 to 309, just 0,003 percentage points.
For the first time since last August 5, when our public debt was still in the midst of the speculative storm, i interest rates on BTPs have fallen below those of the Bonos. Now the confrontation continues head-to-head, but it is evident that the situation has now changed on the markets: in the eyes of investors, Italy is no longer a less secure port than Spain. The risk thermometer marks the same temperature.
Yet until recently this was absolutely not the case. Only in January was the gap between the two spreads still over 150 basis points. They have contributed to easing the tension on our public debt the reforms launched in a short space of time by the Monti government, but the factor that most of all determined the turnaround was the change in policy by the ECB.
With the advent of Mario Draghi as president, the Frankfurt institute has chosen the road to unlimited liquidity, guaranteeing the European banking system huge loans with very low interest rates (1%) and a three-year maturity. After the first auction on 21 December, the second wave of the program (Ltro2) arrived on Wednesday and was even larger (from 490 to 529 billion). It is easy to predict that credit institutions will invest (a good) part of this money to buy government bonds. In this way they will be able to speculate on the difference in returns. But meanwhile, spreads are plummeting.
