25.4.10

German Bond Issue Meets Weak Demand

Germany's €3 billion ($4.03 billion) offer of its 30-year bund was undersubscribed at an auction Wednesday, something analysts traced to a possible combination of pricing terms, European debt jitters and heavy market supply.

The German government sold €2.458 billion of the 4.75% July 2040-dated bund at an average yield of 3.83%. Its €3 billion offer, however, attracted only €2.752 billion in bids.

The German debt agency played down the failure to get a full allotment, the first for any German government bond for more than a year. "Underbidding happens once in a while—we don't have a problem with it," Joerg Mueller, a spokesman at the agency, said. Mr. Mueller dismissed some speculation in the markets that higher inflation expectations may have generated disappointment in the yield on offer.

Some analysts also suggested Germany's future participation in any Greek bailout poses a risk to German borrowing requirements. "The aid mechanism for Greece is a potential risk for German paper as Germany will be regarded as one of the main countries [involved in the bailout]," said Ioannis Sokos, strategist at BNP Paribas in London. "However, we are still not there, as there is a lot of uncertainty with respect to the implementation of the plan," he added.

The heavily laden issuance calendar for European sovereign debt also could have weighed on investor appetite for long-dated debt, which typically draws a smaller selection of investors than shorter-term paper.

Germany has penciled in one 30-year bond auction each quarter in 2010, with the next issues due in July and October. Belgium sold €4 billion of a new 2041-dated bond in mid-April, while the Netherlands is planning a 30-year bond before the summer.

"It is not uncommon that German bonds remain uncovered at auctions but Germans can totally rely on the very reliable and liquid secondary market," said David Schnautz, fixed-income strategist at Commerzbankin Frankfurt. From the seller's standpoint, the €3 billion is a very high amount for a 30-year auction, he said.

In Wednesday's secondary market, German government bonds firmed in what market participants termed was a flight to quality, featuring investors moving into Europe's most liquid market amid returning jitters over a possible Greek insolvency.

"Today's results clearly illustrate that 30-year bonds are too long to benefit from flight-to-safety flows," said Jan von Gerich, senior analyst at Nordea Ban in Helsinki. "One should not read today's auction as meaning that the demand for German bonds would be waning more generally," he said.

Market watchers said the Greek factor may have played a bigger role in the failure of a Polish auction Wednesday. The Polish Finance Ministry planned to sell 600 million zlotys ($207.8 million) of five-year, fixed-rate T-bonds at a top-up tender.

But that top-up issue on a previous bond came hard on the heels Wednesday of a fully allocated primary tender earlier that sold 3 billion zlotys of five-year T-bonds.

The Polish problem, said Nigel Rendell, an emerging-markets analyst at the Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets in London, might be "just a case of indigestion."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575197660078322620.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Αυτοί
που επισήμαιναν ότι η Γερμανία δεν κατόρθωσε να καλύψει μια έκδοση 30ετών ομολόγων, σε αντίθεση με την Ελλάδα, αγνοούν κάποιες βασικές διαφορές. Η Γερμανία απέρριψε προσφορές από ένα επίπεδο και πάνω, όπως κάνει συχνά. Οι δε επενδυτές δεν αγόρασαν με το επιτόκιο που ήταν διατεθειμένο να τους δώσει το γερμανικό δημόσιο επειδή το συγκεκριμένο ομόλογο θα ανοίξει και πάλι σε λίγους μήνες.

http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_economyepix_1_24/04/2010_398675

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