EGBs are mildly lower on Thursday.......>

EGB SUMMARY: EGBs are mildly lower on Thursday after an eventful overnight news

session. The 10Y bund yield is 0.8bp higher at 0.393% with a fairly parallel

shift along the core curves. If anything, the 5Y area is leading the sell-off

and volumes have been high for the Obl contract.

- Yesterday evening, Dutch Central Bank Chief, Klaas Knot delivered a typically

hawkish speech in which he called for an end to QE in Sept and said that he

expects inflation to pick up.

- Asian stocks were weak in the overnight session although some of the bigger

losses were clawed back. Bitcoin has also been extremely volatile (more so than

usual) although it is not clear how this impacts debt markets yet.

- French CPI data printed close to expectations at 0.1%M/M in November although

the annual rise in HICP beat expectations by a tenth to 1.3%Y/Y.

- Spanish final Q3 GDP hit the previous estimate at 0.8%QoQ.

- German retail sales emulated weak data elsewhere and dropped 1.2%M/M in Oct

and were well below expectations but economists are explaining this away with

mild weather effects.