Debt Sale in Italy Steadies Markets
(New York Times)— Stocks steadied Thursday in Europe and were poised for a lift at the opening bell on Wall Street, after Italy managed a successful offering of debt securities.
PARIS — Stocks steadied Thursday in Europe and were poised for a lift at the opening bell on Wall Street, after Italy, the latest euro zone domino to begin wobbling, managed a successful offering of debt securities, though at a sharply higher rate than the last time it went to market.
In morning trading, the Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chip shares, rose 0.5 percent, while the FTSE 100 index in London fell about 0.5 percent.
Standard & Poor's 500 index futures gained 0.8 percent, suggesting that Wall Street stocks would rise at the opening bell. On Wednesday, the S.& P. 500 index fell 3.7 percent as the reverberations from the euro crisis grew.
Italy raised €5 billion, or $6.8 billion, in an auction Thursday of one-year securities. The Italian Treasury sold the full allotment of bonds on offer, but it paid an average rate of 6.09 percent to do so, far above the 3.57 percent it paid for a similar offering on Oct. 3. It also marked the most Italy has had paid for such debt since September 1997, when the country still used the lira.
