Lawrence McDonald

Article by Paul Dobson, Emma Charlton and Lucy Meakin, Bloomberg European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s unlimited three-year loans to euro-region banks may give Italy and Spain only temporary respite from the region’s debt crisis. Two-year Italian and Spanish notes rallied since the ECB said Dec. 8 that it planned to offer as much liquidity as [...]

Article By Chiara Vasarri, Bloomberg Italy will sell as much as $11 billion in bonds today, one day after borrowing costs plunged at an auction of shorter-maturity debt. The Treasury in Rome will sell bonds maturing in 2014, 2018, 2021 and 2022. Italy yesterday sold 9 billion euros of 179-day bills to yield 3.251 percent, down [...]

Article By CNBC via Reuters Italian government bond yields edged higher on Tuesday and were expected to rise further this week with investors growing nervous that thin liquidity may complicate Rome’s plans to sell 8.5 billion euros worth of debt. Ten-year Italian bond yields rose 8 basis points on the day to 7.10 percent, widening the [...]

Article By Chiara Vasarri and Lorenzo Totaro Prime Minister Mario Monti’s market honeymoon is ending as Italian bond yields approaching 7 percent signal mounting concern his government may struggle to sell 440 billion euros ($574 billion) of debt next year. Monti took just five weeks in office to push through a 30 billion-euro emergency budget package [...]

Article By Gabi Thesing and Rainer Buergin, Bloomberg The European Central Bank will lend euro-area banks a record amount for three years in its latest attempt to keep credit flowing to the economy during the sovereign debt crisis. The Frankfurt-based ECB awarded 489 billion euros ($645 billion) in 1,134-day loans today, the most ever in a [...]

Article By Liz Capo McCormick and Tom Keene The European Central Bank is becoming the lender and borrower of last resort for the European banking system and will be forced to expand debt purchases to combat deflation. “Banks would rather lend to the ECB than lend to each other, and would rather borrow from the ECB [...]

Article By Emma Charlton and Keith Jenkins, Bloomberg Spanish and Italian notes surged, leading gains in euro-area debt, on speculation banks bought the securities to use as collateral when the European Central Bank starts offering three-year loans next week. Spain’s two-year yields dropped to a four-month low after the nation sold almost double its initial maximum [...]