MacroScope

Italy’s borrowing costs over ten years drew closer to five percent after a decision by Prime Minister Mario Monti to step down early left the country’s political future unclear, hurting riskier euro zone debt.

Monti said on Saturday he would resign once the 2013 budget was approved, raising questions over who will take the reins of the euro zone’s third largest economy at a time when it remains a focus of the region’s three-year debt crisis.

His announcement, potentially bringing forward an election due early next year, came after former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party withdrew its support for the government — and Berlusconi himself said he would run to become premier for a fifth time.

Justin Knight, European rates strategist at UBS says:

Berlusconi’s actions have created a degree of uncertainty in the market with regards to the Italian political scene. Part of the problem here is that investors outside of Italy are not positioned very well for this.

He was referring to the recent bout of buying in Italian debt, mainly thanks to the European Central Bank’s promise that it will provide central bank support – should a country decide to ask for aid first.

Another week, another Greek debt deal. Third time’s a charm, EU and Greek politicians assure us. Under the agreement, Greece’s international lenders agreed to reduce Greece’s debt load by 40 billion euros, cutting it to 124 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 through a package of steps.

Marc Chandler, head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, points out “an under-appreciated twist to the plot”: the Greek deal has potential implications for other bailed out European states like Portugal and Ireland.

European officials adopted a principle of equal treatment under the framework of the EFSF. Essentially, this means that consideration given out to Greece applied to the other countries who receive EFSF assistance, namely Ireland and Portugal.

MacroScope is pleased to post the following from guest blogger Peter Attard Montalto. Peter is emerging market economist at Nomura International and here outlines why he is cautiously constructive on the issue of sovereign risk in South Africa.

Recent events in South Africa have sent some conflicting signals to investors about sovereign risks. On the one hand there was some regulatory flip-flopping over the Vodacom listing given objections from the union organisation COSATU, which raised questions about the influence of unions in Jacob Zuma’s administration. On the other hand the sovereign issuing some $1.5 billion was highly successful and oversubscribed.

With Zuma recently elected on a platform of change for his domestic audience and continuation of old policies when speaking to investors, there is a raft of new ministers and new ministries and quite a bit of policy uncertainty. No foreign investor will deny South Africa’s need to address serious social problems of inequality, housing, jobs and education through a more developmental state agenda. However investors I speak to simply want to see that this is not at the expense of the productive sectors of the economy.