Italy sells 6.5bn euros of government bonds

LONDON: Italy sold 6.5 billion euros of government bonds on Thursday, with three-year borrowing costs falling to their lowest since October 2010 after Germany's top court backed the euro zone's new rescue fund.

The gross yield at the sale of 4 billion euro of three-year bonds was 2.75 percent, down from 4.65 percent at the last auction of the paper on July 13 and compared with an average of 4.11 percent at sales of similar paper this year. Investors bid for 1.49 times the amount offered versus 1.73 lat time.

It also sold 1.5 billion euros of 2026 bonds, the longest maturity conventional bond the country had tried to sell in over a year, and 1 billion euros of off-the-run 2017 paper.