Having been on a two-week vacation from their Europe-wide buying spree of everything that is red for the day, it would appear that the ECB is back. As Italian bonds started to accelerate to the downside today, and the 10Y bond touched EUR99, suddenly the yield-rising trend reversed and nine (count them nine) gappy surges later, BTPs are in the green with their yields heading back towards the safety of 5% very rapidly. Perhaps reflecting on the points we have raised before on the CDS markets being a cleaner 'market-reflective' indication of risk is increasingly important as we note...drum roll please...10Y Italy CDS are +21bps at 382bps, near the wides of the day as 10Y bond spreads are now tighter by 2bps and 20bps off their worst levels of the day!
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The 5Y CDS-Cash basis has risen 10bps today from its lows this morning and perhaps that helkps explain some of the move but as we have pointed out before this is 'hedged' risk taking and not reflective of real-money risk appetite - keep watching CDS!
Chart: Bloomberg