Irish 10-year bond rate falls to below 0.60% for first time

The market interest rate on Ireland’s 10 year bonds fell below 0.6 per cent for the first time ever on Wednesday, having contracted by about 30 per cent from late last week, when the market realised that the UK was quitting the EU.

The yield on the bond fell more than 0.04 percentage points at in midmorning trading to 0.5951 per cent, having surpassed a previous record low of 0.614 per cent set in April last year. The yield had widened to as much as 0.855 on Friday after the Brexit referendum.

Peripheral European markets are benefitting from speculation that the European Central Bank may further ease monetary policy after the institution's president, Mario Draghi, said yesterday that Brexit may subtract as much as 0.5 per cent from European growth over the next three years.

“Expect more dovish public pronouncements from the ECB inthe period ahead as speculation amounts that the ECB -- and not just the Bank of England -- will likely need to provide more monetary stimulus to mitigate the fallout from Brexit,” said Simon Barry, an economist with Ulster Bank in Dublin.

Dutch bank ING said in a note to clients that the markets believe that the ECB could extend its quantitative easing programme, which consists of buying euro zone government and corporate bonds, next year, when it is set to end.

Irish bonds are also being helped by the fact that the NTMA has already raised 93 per cent of its minimum full-year borrowing target of €6 billion, according to one Dublin-based bond trader, who declined to be identified.

The National Treasury Management Agency "have done a really good job managing issuance, with very little required over the next six to 12 months," he said.