MacroScope

Spanish government bonds have had a good run since the European Central Bank said it would protect the euro last year. But some analysts say the threat of a rating downgrade to junk remains an important risk.

Credit default swap prices are discounting such a move, according to Markit. Spain is only one notch above junk according to Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s ratings, and two notches above junk for Fitch. All three have it on negative outlook.  Bank of America-Merrill Lynch says it sees a “high probability” of a sovereign rating downgrade in the second half of the year.

As the table above shows, a cut to sub-investment grade would prompt Spanish sovereign debt to fall out of certain indices tracked by bond funds, resulting in forced selling, which could drive Spanish borrowing costs higher.

The day before an EU summit that probably won’t come up with anything decisive in crisis management. If that sounds rather underwhelming beware. There’s an awful lot of jockeying for position over when Spain will seek sovereign help, the Greek troika talks continue to look messy with time running very short and the leaders would be very well advised to demonstrate that their longer-term plans for closer integration are not running out of puff – item one on that agenda is getting plans for step one of a banking union back on track.

We could get a decent crack at this today with a number of EU leaders, including Angela Merkel, Spain’s Mariano Rajoy and Greek premier Antonis Samaras, gathering in Bucharest for a centre-right political congress.

On the jockeying front, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has called for a leap forward in euro integration, particularly in terms of fiscal union with a commissioner given power over members’ budgets. That’s going to prompt some heated debate in Brussels on Thursday/Friday with France, in particular, likely to be aghast.

Italy is expected to pay slightly more than it did a month ago to borrow for three years at today’s auction of up to 6 billion euros of a range of bonds. Yields edged up at a sale of 11 billion euros of short-term paper on Wednesday but there is no immediate cause for alarm. Three year-yields have dropped from 5.3 percent to around 3.3 since the ECB declared its readiness to buy the bonds of troubled euro zone sovereigns and Italy has shifted about 80 percent of its debt requirements this year, so is on track in that regard.

The fact that it now seems possible that Mario Monti could continue as prime minister after spring elections can’t do any harm either although yesterday’s surprise cut in income tax muddies the waters a little.

The main problem for Italy is that Spain is in no rush to seek a bailout, a move that would alleviate pressure on Rome too. The IMF kept up the drumbeat of pressure for action in Tokyo, demanding “courageous and cooperative action”, having yesterday said the euro area was still threatened by a “downward spiral of capital flight, breakup fears and economic decline”.  German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble retorted that Europe was solving its problems and had done far more than appeared to outside observers.

So the euro zone debt crisis morphs again and there is a hint of schadenfreude about the Dutch, who lectured and hectored the Greeks, now falling into the same mire.

The Dutch premier, Mark Rutte, will probably try to cobble together an unholy alliance in parliament in order to meet an April 30 EU deadline for it to present budget plans for the next year. But with elections not until late June at the earliest, there will be an unnerving period of vacuum for the markets and no guarantee that opposition parties will play ball and allow a budget to be put together.

Given all that, today’s Dutch bond auction, not normally a cause for alarm or excitement, is thrown into sharp relief. Expect yields to spiral although the small amount on offer means the paper will be sold. Italy is selling zero-coupon and inflation-linked bonds while Spain,  which remains front and centre despite the Netherlands’ travails, will probably see borrowing costs double when it sells up to 2 billion euros of 3- and 6-month treasury bills. Spanish 10-year yields poked above the pivotal 6 percent level again yesterday as the Dutch government collapse rocked markets. The Bank of Spain confirmed on Monday that a new recession has taken hold.

S&P on Monday cut Greece’s ratings to “selective default” but said it would consider the default “cured” after Greece completes its debt exchange. At that point, S&P plans on upgrading the country to CCC. Here is the full statement S&P issued alongside the decision:

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that it has lowered its ‘CC’ long-term and ‘C’ short-term sovereign credit ratings on the Hellenic Republic (Greece) to ‘SD’ (selective default).

Our recovery rating of ’4′ on Greece’s foreign-currency issue ratings is unchanged. Our country transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment for Greece, as for all other eurozone members, remains ‘AAA’.

U.S. stocks are already down about 1% today, so it’s hard to imagine what might have happened if Fitch had decided to follow Standard & Poor’s lead and cut the country’s prized AAA credit rating. Instead, the firm affirmed the U.S. credit rating and gave it a stable outlook. What follows is the full press release that accompanied Fitch’s decision:

Fitch Ratings has affirmed the United States (US) Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) and Fitch-rated US Treasury security ratings at ‘AAA’. Fitch has simultaneously affirmed the US Country Ceiling at ‘AAA’ and the Short-term foreign currency rating at ‘F1+’. The Outlook on the Long-term ratings is Stable.

The affirmation of the US ‘AAA’ sovereign rating reflects the fact that the key pillars of US’s exceptional creditworthiness remains intact: its pivotal role in the global financial system and the flexible, diversified and wealthy economy that provides its revenue base. Monetary and exchange rate flexibility further enhances the capacity of the economy to absorb and adjust to ‘shocks’.

Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded the United States’ prized credit rating, a move that is likely to compound recent instability in financial markets. Here is S&P’s statement explaining the decision:

United States of America Long-Term Rating Lowered To ‘AA+’ Due To Political Risks, Rising Debt Burden; Outlook Negative

We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’ and affirmed the ‘A-1+’ short-term rating.

A potential downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt by a credit ratings agency, once seen as impossible for the world’s largest economy, could resound in financial markets more with a whimper than a bang. That’s because, as was evident in a Reuters poll, investors have largely come to expect it.

That Standard & Poor’s ratings agency will cut the U.S. debt rating from AAA to AA+ is “the market’s base case at the moment,” said Krishna Memani, fixed-income director at OppenheimerFunds, with $188 billion in assets under management.

The market does not expect a significant, long-term deficit reduction plan that would keep S&P from cutting the U.S. debt rating.