This time, you can’t blame the eurozone. The latest turbulence in global bond markets, which has suffered a steep sell-off across emerging and advanced economies, was not triggered by tensions in Europe’s monetary union, unlike most episodes in the past few years. But the region could become one of its casualties.
Investors’ expectations of a European Central Bank response are rising – with justification. Yet, with his options limited, Mario Draghi, ECB president, may simply exacerbate the volatility created by his counterpart at the US Federal Reserve.
What is clear is that the eurozone impact was not at the top of Ben Bernanke’s worry list when he set out plans last week to start “tapering” the Fed’s quantitative easing later this year.