Spanish yields rise

Market concerns shifted away from Greece and towards Spain on Monday. Bloomberg reports:

The euro strengthened, rebounding from a four-day losing streak, as polls showed Greece’s pro- bailout parties gained ground. European stocks erased gains, Spanish bonds declined and yields on German two-year notes fell to a record low.

The euro rose 0.2 percent to $1.2538 at 4 p.m. New York time. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost less than 0.1 percent, moving lower after gaining as much as 0.9 percent, as banks slumped. Spain’s IBEX 35 dropped 2.2 percent while Germany’s DAX Index retreated 0.3 percent after adding 1.4 percent. Yields on two-year bunds slipped to 0.027 percent...

The yield on Spain’s 10-year bond climbed 16 basis points, or 0.16 percentage point, to 6.47 percent. The extra yield investors demand to hold the securities instead of their German counterparts expanded by 17 basis points to 511 basis points after reaching 514 basis points, the most since the euro’s introduction in 1999.

In a news conference on Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy asked for support from European authorities but insisted that he would not seek a bailout.

However, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at The Telegraph says that things will get worse for Spain and that Rajoy is fighting a losing battle to stave off an EU rescue.