Gaining ground this afternoon

A pick up in volumes for EGBs this afternoon.

• Futures extended gains following Dovish comments from ECB Villeroy, not too surprising given that he is a voter Dove.
• Main headline was on comment that "reduction purchase in Q3 and Q4 are speculative"
• BTP led the way and continue to outperforms throughout the afternoon session.
• Contract tested next resistance at 146.84 Low Feb 26 and recent breakout level (printed a 146.87 high).
• Above the latter, would open to yield tech support at 0.930%, which would equate to 147.12.
• Peripherals trade tighter against the German 10yr and as noted, Italy is in the lead by 3.4bps
• Looking ahead, ECB Lane and BoE Tenreyro are the speakers left for the day.
• Bund futures are up 0.34 today at 169.66 with 10y Bund yields down -2.3bp at -0.164% and Schatz yields down -0.3bp at -0.664%
• BTP futures are up 0.59 today at 146.71 with 10y yields down -5.6bp at 0.967% and 2y yields down -2.6bp at -0.286%.
• OAT futures are up 0.38 today at 160.00 with 10y yields down -3.0bp at 0.204% and 2y yields up 0.2bp at -0.641%.