Spanish Bonds Fall Even as Rajoy Unveils More Budget Cuts
Spain’s efforts to calm investors with an additional 10 billion euros ($13 billion) of budget cuts in education and health failed to stem concerns the nation may be the fourth euro member to need a bailout.
The yield on Spain’s 10-year benchmark bond surged almost 20 basis points to 5.94 percent today as Economy Minister Luis de Guindos declined to rule out a rescue for Spain and Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said the nation’s lenders may need additional capital if the economy weakens more than expected.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy yesterday unexpectedly announced the 10 billion-euro package, less than two weeks after unveiling the most austere budget in more than three decades. Rajoy is targeting basic public services for the first time since his election in December in a bid to convince investors he can bring order to the nation’s finances.
“There are growing fears that the Spanish economy is caught in a pernicious circle,” Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London, said in an e- mailed response to questions. “The weakness of government finances, the fragility of banks and worries about the scale of the recession all feed on each other.”
Yields Jump
Spain’s 10-year borrowing costs have jumped more than one percentage point since March 2, when Rajoy announced that Spain will miss its 2012 budget-deficit goal approved by the European Union. Spain overshot last year’s target and the nation is battling its second recession since 2009.
Euro-region finance ministers on March 12 settled on a shortfall goal of 5.3 percent of gross domestic product for Spain in 2012, leaving it unchanged at 3 percent for 2013.
Rajoy will spell out his planned reforms at a meeting of People’s Party parliamentary deputies tomorrow, an official in the government’s communications department, who asked not to be named in line with its policy, said in a phone interview yesterday. Health and education, the areas Rajoy said he would cut, are run by regional administrations, and the premier will meet today with Esperanza Aguirre, head of the Madrid region.
The government forecasts Spanish public debt will surge to a record 79.8 percent of GDP this year even as it seeks to cut the budget deficit by 3.2 percentage points of GDP in one year.
‘Ambitious’ Reforms
The country is working on “ambitious” health reforms and has to put regional finances “in order,” Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro said in an interview on RNE radio today. He also said that increasing the value-added tax would be a “deep error” that would extend the recession and hurt consumption.
Spain doesn’t plan to seek aid for its banks from European rescue funds as European Central Bank lending has provided them with a “very considerable liquidity cushion,” Montoro said.
The ECB has lent banks in the euro region more than 1 trillion euros for three years since December, propping up demand for sovereign bonds. The ECB should be more aggressive by buying more public and private debt, Alfredo Saenz, chief executive officer of Banco Santander SA, said in Madrid today, calling for “stronger European quantitative easing.”
Charles Dallara, head of the Institute of International Finance, who negotiated a Greek debt swap on behalf of private bondholders, said Europe is focusing too much on austerity, threatening its economic recovery.
Reassuring Investors
With the threat looming of a resurgence of the region’s sovereign debt crisis, Dallara called on European officials to enhance their crisis-fighting tools. This is “essential for reassuring markets that the euro area has the resources and commitment to assist member countries facing contagion risks and difficulties in accessing capital markets,” he wrote in a letter prepared for next week’s meetings of the International Monetary Fund and of the World Bank.
“As a result of Spain’s challenges, sentiment towards its sovereign bonds is now the bellwether for Europe’s debt crisis,” Mansoor Mohi-uddin, chief currency strategist at UBS AG (UBSN), wrote in an e-mailed note on April 7. “If investor appetite wanes, then currency markets will start to price in either ECB rate cuts to help restore sentiment, or Madrid requires external assistance from its European Union partners.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Angeline Benoit in Madrid at abenoit4@bloomberg.net; Ben Sills in Madrid at bsills@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net
Spanish Bonds Fall Even as Rajoy Unveils More Budget Cuts
Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy during a plenary session at the Spanish Parliament to approve the new conservative government's first batch of austerity measures, in Madrid.
Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy during a plenary session at the Spanish Parliament to approve the new conservative government's first batch of austerity measures, in Madrid. Photographer: Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stepped up efforts to reassure investors he can bring the country’s deficit under control as his government fights to avoid becoming the fourth euro-area member to require a bailout. Rajoy met with his health and education ministers yesterday to discuss cuts of more than 10 billion euros ($13 billion) as the government reiterated its pledge to reduce the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product next year. That includes plans to accelerate the sale of stakes in lenders under government administration, according to an e-mailed statement. (Source: Bloomberg)
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- John Wraith, a fixed-income strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, discusses the outlook for Spanish bond yields as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stepped up efforts to reassure investors he can bring the country's deficit under control. Wraith, speaking with Owen Thomas and David Tweed on Bloomberg Television's "Countdown," also discusses his strategy for Treasuries. (Source: Bloomberg)
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance, talks about European leaders' response to the region's debt crisis and the potential impact of the crisis on the economy and banking industry. He speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday." (Source: Bloomberg)
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