Sovereign Risk

After Spain, it’s Italy’s turn in the Eurocrisis spotlight. The immediate cause for this spotlight is a two notch downgrade of the Italian sovereign by Moody’s, a rating agency from A3 to Baa2, just two notches above the dreaded junk status. Despite the downgrade, Italy is not Spain and the fact that the downgrade had a rather limited impact on the pricing of Italian bonds issued in its immediate aftermath reflects some of its fundamental strengths.

Nevertheless, expect this to generate a barrage of strongly worded public criticisms from European leaders, but the truth is that they only have themselves to blame. The single biggest factor weighing on the Italian economy at present is the uncertainty about whether or not the Eurocrisis will be resolved. And it is this, rather than Italy’s own domestic situation (which is also complicated), that is the most serious problem.