Italy's 10-yr debt costs climb towards 6 percent at key sale

Italy could issue its first 30-year benchmark bond in more than three years in 2013 after successfully selling a new 15-year bond this week, the head of the Debt Management Office said Wednesday. Rome, which has 2 trillion euros of public debt to refinance, shied away from selling longer-dated paper during the worst of the euro zone debt crisis, which pushed yields on its bonds and its borrowing costs higher across the curve.

Repsol SA, Spain’s largest energy company, expects to sell liquefied natural gas assets for about 2-billion euros (US$2.7-billion) by early February, according to a person familiar with the matter.

By Tom Lydon: Italy’s stock index, the FTSE MIB, was down nearly 2% on Friday while yields on government debt surged following a poor bond auction that highlights the markets’ elevated fear over Europe’s debt crisis.

In the wake of Papandreou's Call for Voter Referendum on EU Debt Deal sovereign debt yields plunged in Germany and surged higher in most other European countries, but most notably Italy and France.

LONDON/NEW YORK — Britain looked poised to lose its AAA rating from a second ratings agency after Fitch Ratings warned on Friday it was likely to downgrade the country in the coming weeks, citing high government debt levels and weak growth. A month since Britain was downgraded by Moody’s, Fitch put the country on review and said a downgrade was a heightened possibility. A decision is due by the end of April, Fitch said in a statement. Sterling fell sharply, dropping half a cent against the dollar.

Standard & Poor's cut the credit rating of Spain on Wednesday, one day after the ratings agency sent shockwaves through the markets by downgrading Greece and Portugal over debt concerns.S&P said it lowered Spain's long-term sovereign credit rating by one notch to "AA" from "AA+" because the country was "likely to have an extended period of subdued economic growth, which weakens its budgetary position."