by Calculated Risk on 4/20/2012 08:53:00 AM

From Dow Jones: Italian, Spanish Bonds Suffer As Crisis Fears Mount

Italian and Spanish government bond prices continued to fall early Friday after Thursday's Spanish bond auction failed to inspire renewed confidence in peripheral markets, while French bonds also suffered ahead of Sunday's presidential election. ... Italian 10-year bond yields climbed 10 basis points to 5.68%, while Spanish yields were up 10 basis points at 5.97%, according to Tradeweb. German 10-year bund yields were at 1.61%, having briefly hit a record low of just below 1.6%, while French 10-year yields climbed four basis points to 3.11%.

Here are the Spanish and Italian 10-year yields from Bloomberg. Both are still well below the highs of last November. Both the election in France, and the election in Greece scheduled for May 6th, are making investors uneasy. Sarkozy will probably lose in a runoff, and the smaller parties in Greece will probably do very well. At some point current policies will not survive at the ballot box.