EGBs-GILTS CASH CLOSE: Modest Bear Flattening

The UK and German curves bear flattened Tuesday, with Gilts largely trading sideways and Bunds recovering some losses early in the session.

• Bunds spiked at 1000CET on the simultaneous release of a weak ECB Bank Lending Survey and German IFO, but otherwise core FI largely drifted for most of the session.
• Strong US consumer confidence figures in the afternoon helped nudge yields (esp at the short end) higher into the European cash close.
• Periphery spreads widened modestly, with BTPs underperforming.
• Aside from French consumer confidence figures early in the European session Wednesday, attention is mainly on the Federal Reserve decision later.
• As for the rest of the European week, today we published previews of the ECB decision Thursday (here) and the Eurozone flash inflation readings starting Friday (here).

Closing Yields / 10-Yr Periphery EGB Spreads To Germany

• Germany: The 2-Yr yield is up 2.3bps at 3.068%, 5-Yr is up 0.5bps at 2.511%, 10-Yr is unchanged at 2.425%, and 30-Yr is down 1.2bps at 2.464%.
• UK: The 2-Yr yield is up 2.8bps at 4.966%, 5-Yr is up 1.8bps at 4.361%, 10-Yr is up 1.2bps at 4.268%, and 30-Yr is up 0.7bps at 4.428%.
• Italian BTP spread up 3.5bps at 163.5bps / Spanish up 1.1bps at 102.4bps