Euro zone government bond yields rise, focus on ECB

28 Feb, 2022

FRANKFURT: Euro zone bond yields rose on Friday, tracking moves in US Treasuries after falling sharply the previous day as the Russian invasion of Ukraine boosted demand for safe-haven assets.

Investors are now looking to see what impact the war will have on the European Central Bank’s future policy decisions, analysts said. The ECB discussed the possible consequences of war in Ukraine when it met for a previously-scheduled meeting in Paris on Thursday.

Bond yields are now just off the levels they were before Russia attacked Ukraine.

Germany’s 10-year government bond yield, the benchmark of the bloc, jumped more than 5 basis points to 0.22%. It closed at 0.226% on Wednesday before the news of the Russian attack.

The spreads between Germany’s long and short maturity yields tightened slightly. The US 10-year Treasury yield briefly rose more than 3 bps to 2.007% before retreating partially to trade at 1.98% “It seems likely that the ECB will revise its inflation forecast upwards. So we may still get an accelerated tapering, as long as the conflict stays within Ukraine,” Andrew Mulliner, head of Global Aggregate Strategies at Janus Henderson, said.

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