In early European trading, shares of Italy's third largest and most troubled bank were halted after crashing 17%, dropping to fresh all time lows, after the bank warned it is not only insolvent, but its liquidity could run out far sooner than expected.
The danger signs are building up for the Chinese bond market.
First, last Thursday, Chinese bond futures crashed by the most on record forcing China's regulator to briefly halt trading in the security until the panic fades.
Then, on Friday, a Chinese bill auction technically "failed" when it was unable to find enough buyers for the total amount offered for sale.
On Sunday, when we previewed the latest last-ditch effort to rescue Italy's third largest bank when Monte Paschi launched a 4-day attempt to sell €5 billion in equity to anchor and retail investors, we said that "in the otherwise quiet pre-Christmas week, all eyes will be on Monte Paschi, and specifically the intentions of the alleged anchor investor, Qatar (and perhaps a handful of Chinese banks), to determine if Italy's banking crisis is "fixed" if only for the near future, or if the new year is set to begin with another "risk flaring" episode out of the Italian banking sector as Monte Pa
While Italy scrambles to conclude a private sector rescue of ailing Monte Paschi, which hopes to raise €5 billion in the form a share sale to anchor and retail investors, while at the same time the bank is underoing a debt for equity swap, moments ago Reuters reported that Italy's cabinet will meet later on Monday to authorise an increase to the national debt to cover the cost of saving Monte dei Paschi di Siena, should a public bailout be unavoidable, as well as other ailing banks, government sources said cited by Reuters.
Global markets begin the last full week of trading of the year in subdued fashion, with U.S. equity futures rising 0.1%, to 2,258.5, European shares decline halting two straight weeks of gains, and Asian shares hitting a four-week low. The Dollar extends losses, yen and gold rise amid geopolitical concerns as the fallout from China's seizure of a U.S. continues to reverberate. Volumes are thinning before the December holiday season and end of the year, with trading in German bund futures about half the average for the past five days.