Italian Bonds Sag as ECB Talks Up Prospect of Offloading Debt.

Italian bonds are performing worse than their peers as the European Central Bank (ECB) suggests that it may increase the pace of selling debt next year. The yield on Italy's 10-year bond increased more than German bonds after the Bundesbank President stated that the ECB's balance sheet must shrink significantly. Italy's bonds are particularly affected by the ECB's quantitative tightening because they were the main beneficiaries of its debt-buying programs. Analysts and investors believe there is a risk that the central bank will taper reinvestments of its pandemic bond portfolio earlier than expected, which would flood the market with more Italian debt. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Bloomberg.com is the property of Bloomberg, L.P. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)