On the day when Germany and Italy voted to approve the permanent European rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, the scary results from the Spanish bond showed why the rescue fund is so important. In this morning’s auction the yield on the Spanish the 2-year bond rose to 5.302% from 4.483% at the June 7 auction.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy this morning announced another 65 billion in budget cuts and new taxes (by 2014) to meet the conditions imposed by European leaders before they will provide 100 billion euros in rescue funding for Spanish banks. In other words, all the pain announced this morning falls on Spanish workers and taxpayers so that the country can bail out its most troubled banks.
The plan to break the link between troubled banks and troubled sovereign debt that came out of the June 28-29 summit of European leaders looks badly frayed this morning. The meeting of European finance ministers that began today and that really gets up to speed tomorrow has turned into a fight over what was actually agreed at the June summit.
You’re excused if you don’t know exactly what European leaders decided at the end of today’s summit—they can’t seem to agree either—or what the actual effect might be—the financial markets are positive but confused.
A German government source briefing reporters ahead of the European summit today warned against “exaggerated panic mongering” over the surge in yields on Spanish and Italian government debt. That on a day that saw Italy sell 10-year bonds at 6.19%, up from a 6.03% yield at the last auction
Spain sold 2.2 billion euros ($2.77) of bonds this morning. The good news is that total sales were more than the Spanish government had set as a minimum target. The bad news is that yields spiked. SAnd economic data this morning indicates that all of Europe, even Germany, looks headed to recession
The relief rally after Sunday’s election results showed that Greece isn’t about to leave the euro tomorrow had pretty much petered out by 11 a.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500, which had climbed above Friday’s close by 10:52 a.m. had given back all its gains to move back under the Friday close by 11:04 a.m.
