U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street Wednesday as investors still watched Europe with caution after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced he would step down once a series of austerity measures had been put in place.
The austerity program could in theory be completed by Christmas, and observers suggested a government of technocrats could run the country until scheduled elections in 2013, although Berlusconi himself suggested Tuesday night that new elections would be preferable.
The yield on Italian sovereign debt, however, rose as high as 7 percent in morning trade after LCH.Clearnet raised the initial margin call applied to Italian debt by between 3.5 and 5 percentage points across all maturities of BTP and inflation-linked BTP bonds.
That led European markets, which had opened the day higher on the announcement of the Italian premier’s resignation, into negative territory.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares fell 1.4 percent at 969.84 points, reversing Tuesday's 0.9 percent rise.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment