German two-year bond yields turn negative
Another sign of nerves this morning -- investors have been racing to put
their money into German two-year government bonds, a classic 'safe-haven'.
That has driven up the value of the bonds, and pushed down the yield (the
measure of the interest paid on the bonds) into negative territory. German
two-year bonds are now yielding just -0.01%, as this Bloomberg
graph shows:
A negative yield means that buyers are effectively paying for the privilege
of holding the bonds.
3 comments:
A politician's view on life...
How can I keep office, power and prestige?
How can I gain office, power and prestige?
What favours can I do for my mates?
How can I ensure my own financial reward once out of office?
How many posh hotels, fact finding trips and swanky conferences can I get the taxpayer to fork out for?
How many TV shows and newspapers can I appear in?
Why do I have to suffer the ignomy of having to get re-elected, surely the people know that they are lucky to have someone like me representing me... err them?
More gloomy economic data - this time from America.
The ISM non-manufacturing index (which measures output across the US service sector) fell to 54.2 in October, down from 55.1 in September, and lower than economists expected.
That still shows growth, but will bolster fears that the US economy could finish the year with a whimper rather than a bang. And with Britain's service sector also performing weakly in October (see 9.35am), the omens are not great.
Antonis Roupakiotis's decision to sign the Greek austerity bill (see last post) means that it can now proceed to parliament.
It's still not clear how Roupakiotis's Democratic Left party will vote this week, especially as the austerity package and the 2013 budget will be voted on separately. Its leader, Fotis Kouvelis, had said that his party would support the budget but not the austerity programme.
However, the party's top brass are still considering the issue...
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