The Bund contract opened steady and.....>

EGB SUMMARY: The Bund contract opened steady and but for a few oscillations is

still roughly unchanged on the day. The 10Y Bund yield sits at 0.68%, almost

precisely flat on the day. The belly of the curve has underperformed marginally.

- The BTP market remains well bid and it is worth noting that there are E9bln

Italian coupon payments arriving tomorrow, which will be assisting today.

- Later this morning Germany will sell E3bln of its fairly new 10Y Bund yield.

Month-end extensions are rather large in EGB space and most people in the street

see this as the saviour of the Bund auction, even if the yield curve has

flattened lately and 10Y Bund auctions regularly go technically uncovered.

- Yesterday, Slovenia announced that it would sell 10Y, 15Y and 30Y paper via

syndication in the 'near future'. There is no word on this yet this morning.

- French Q3 GDP printed 0.6%Q/Q, as expected and German GfK consumer confidence

dipped slightly in March to 10.8 from 11.0.

- German unemployment for February is due at 0855GMT.