Spain sells 4.8bn euros of government bonds

LONDON: Spain sold 4.76 billion euros of debt on Thursday, including a new five-year bond and its first longer-term issuance since May 2011, in an auction which drew healthy demand.

Investors bought 3.04 billion euros of the five-year bond at an average yield of 4.68 percent.

The bid-to-cover ratio, a measure of the strength of demand, was 1.6, compared with an average of 2.96 at sales of similar maturity debt this year.

The 2032 bond sold at an average yield of 6.33 percent with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.1.