Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper highlights.....>

ITALY PRESS: Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper highlights that Italian families are

stepping into the Italian government bond market as banks are selling.

- Their holdings are mostly BTPs, rather than BOTs these days because of the

negative yields on the latter. The paper makes the point that the retail

investor is emulating what it did during the 2011 crisis when foreign investors

fled Italian debt. It is pointed out that E1.4 trillion remains in current

accounts at banks earning nothing. 

- Institutional investors (aside from the ECB) are also lightening their BTP

holdings, although the paper speculates that this is not so much because of the

mar 4 elections but the impending end of the ECB's APP.