If it’s Thursday, it must be Madrid. After Italy’s encounter with soaring borrowing costs last week, it is now Spain’s turn. An auction of 10-year government bonds went badly on Thursday; the authorities were forced to pay a whisker under 7 per cent, the level above which the word “bail-out” gets whispered. It means that Spain’s borrowing costs are 150 basis points higher today than a month ago. Spain’s predicament is different from Italy’s. Yet investors no longer differentiate between them.
既然是週四,那該輪到馬德里了。繼上週義大利國債借貸成本飆升後,現在輪到西班牙倒楣了。週四,該國10年期國債拍賣不順利,當局被迫支付逼近7%的收益率,一旦超過7%,人們就免不了說出「紓困」這個詞了。這意味著西班牙今天的舉債成本比一個月前高出150個基點。西班牙的處境與義大利不一樣。但投資者已不再區分它們。