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July 13, 2012 at 05:08 AM
Italy passed a market test on Friday after a Moody’s downgrade that its industry minister called unjustified. After yields at a bond sale fell well below 5%, only hours after Moody’s had cut the country’s sovereign debt rating to two notches above junk, the head of the Italian business association Confindustria, Giorgio Squinzi, said Italy was stronger than Moody’s thought.
Reuters reported Friday that Moody’s cut Italy’s rating two notches, to Baa2, and warned that it could lower it even further. While markets were rattled by the action, apparently investors were not so upset that they failed to see opportunity; they snapped up three-year bonds at an auction just a few hours later at lower yields than Italy has seen since May.
Angry politicians and business leaders criticized the move, with Industry Minister Corrado Passera saying in the report that it was “altogether unjustified and even misleading.“
Joining in the criticism, Squinzi was even more voluble, saying, “This is just Moody’s opinion. I think our country, and our manufacturing system, is much stronger than the Moody’s evaluation suggests. As president of Confindustria, as an employer and as a private citizen, I think our country is stronger than that.”
In a statement, Moody’s had said of the ratings action, which came as a surprise to markets, “The negative outlook reflects our view that risks to implementing these reforms remain substantial. Adding to them is the deteriorating macroeconomic environment, which increases austerity and reform fatigue among the population.”
