Bond

Bulgaria's Finance Ministry has cancelled a BGN 400M debt issue because the government budget is expected to show a surplus for the month of January for the first time since 2009.

The ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that an auction of three-month government securities scheduled for 9 February 2015 had been cancelled.

The Turkish lira weakened to as low as 2.42 against the dollar Jan. 29 on expectations that the Turkish Central Bank will cut interest rates at an extraordinary monetary policy committee meeting as early as next week.

By Francesco Canepa and Blaise Robinson

European shares snapped a four-day rally on Wednesday with Greeks shares under pressure as anti-bailout party Syriza consolidated its lead ahead of the Jan. 25 general election.

By Lucy Meakin

The yield premium investors demand to hold Italian bonds instead of German bunds rose from the least since May 2010 as investors considered the scale and form of anticipated European Central Bank sovereign-debt purchases.

By Anestis Dokas

Greek investors who have withdrawn some or all of their deposits in the last month-and-a-half are not panicking, aiming, instead at finding investment targets that would secure them positive returns, at least for the first half of the year, according to sources.

 Finance minister says there is little risk of a bank run, but political uncertainty may harm recovery

Senior European Central Bank officials said on Friday that the lender will not be buying any Greek bonds this month as part of its expected bond acquisition program and will definitely not have Greece?s debt to Frankfurt restructured, as poll-leading party SYRIZA has championed.

By David Goodman

For the first time in 15 months, Greek 10- year government bond yields are back above 10 percent.

Listed firm Selonda Aquacultures announced on Friday the signing on Wednesday of three corporate bond programs with banks, aimed at refinancing the fish farming company’s debts.

The bonds are worth 100 million, 8 million and 2 million euros.

Foreign investors bid for more than three times the amount of retail bonds offered by Cyprus in December and bought the vast majority of six-year issue, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.

Cyprus accepted bids for bonds worth 36.65 million euros from 49 investors after an initial offer of 10 million euros worth of bonds, financial authorities said.

Fitch Ratings has placed Piraeus Bank’s mortgage-covered bonds’ B+ rating on Rating Watch Evolving (RWE).

The rating action follows the segregation of new assets that the issuer put into the cover pool last week.