Six Months Later, Super Mario Eyes His Cape

They’ve still got a dismal economy in Europe, but at least their sovereign debt markets aren’t threatening to implode anymore as borrowing costs for Spain and Italy have fallen steadily over the last six months following European Central Bank Chief Mario Draghi’s promise to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro.

Well, that honeymoon may already be over if bond yields for Spain (shown below) and Italy as reported at Bloomberg are any indication. Corruption allegations in the former are threatening the tenure of Premier Mariano Rajoy and uncertainty is quickly mounting about fast approaching elections in the latter where there’s a new criminal investigation into derivatives trading by major banks.

The curves for bond yields in Italy looks about the same, though the scale is a bit lower with ten-year yields recently rising from just over 4 percent to about 4.5 percent. 

Stories such as How Mario Draghi Found a Way to Rescue the Euro from last month may have been premature.