Sales on Italian government bonds are back. In yesterday’s session, the BTP / Bund spread widened, peaking at 121 basis points. This is the maximum level since last January, close to the record of the year (126). The trend leaves behind the minimum values reached with the arrival of Mario Draghi at the helm of the country. At that time the spread had dropped to around 90 basis points and analysts were still seeing other drops. The comeback, on the other hand, started again and yesterday on the markets there was talk of sell-off, ie a race to sell. Traders fear a return of inflation and sell fixed income. It is a generalized trend.
However, the fear that the ECB may slow down the pace of purchases of its extraordinary Pepp plan is also worrying. The eyes of the experts are already on the next meeting at the beginning of June when it will become clearer which direction Frankfurt will take. The markets are in turmoil and frightening is the new slogan, “tapering”, that is to say a process of gradual slowdown in the purchase of government bonds. A step that would penalize the peripheral countries of the euro area but above all Italy would pay the price. Yesterday the Italian 10-year rate stood in the 1.07% area with an intraday maximum at 1.10%, the highest level since the end of August. The 30-year rate, on the other hand, is again above 2%.