Spanish borrowing costs have hit 6pc, according to Bloomberg data...

Spanish shares tumble 4pc after the country's borrowing costs rose again on worries over its banks, triggering sell-offs in European and US markets as slowing growth in China added to fears for the world economy ---- Spanish borrowing costs have hit 6pc, according to Bloomberg data....The sell-off has taken hold. Spain's benchmark index has now fallen by almost 4pc, while Italy is down by 3.5pc. Just over half an hour of trading left....and the cost of insuring the country against default has hit 500 basis points for the first time. This means it now costs £500,000 a year to insure £10m of Spanish debt over five years. This compares with £433,000 for Italian debt, and around £70,000 for German debt. Spain's borrowing costs are also threatening to breach 6pc. --- Benchmark 10-year bond yields are currently at 5.978pc - and rising, at 16:45 PM on Friday the 13th.apr. 2012.

Mme Lagarde earlier this week reiterated her call for the USA and Japan to fashion credible plans for reducing government debt over the medium term. [She] has been taking a different line with hard-pressed sovereign debtors in the euro zone. Though economic demand in these countries has typically been weaker than in the USA or Japan, the IMF has backed EU authorities in insisting on immediate action to effect swingeing cuts in government deficits. Mme Lagarde is far from willing her prescription as a universal rule, however, probably because she is well aware that if all countries with large government deficits and rising public debt were to act as the peripheral euro zone nations have been coerced into doing, the global economy, or at least the advanced sector of it, would be locked in a prolonged downturn. Clearly, then, the IMF’s priority in enforcing fiscal restraint on euro zone member-states is the preservation of the euro arrangements. Though we may suspect that political motivations lurk behind the position the IMF has adopted, that need not be the case. It could be that the IMF genuinely sees significant benefits for the world economy from keeping the present euro currency system alive in Europe.