European stock markets edged higher on Thursday, along with eurozone government bonds, as investors awaited clues from the European Central Bank on how policymakers might deal with a jump in global borrowing costs.
The regional Stoxx 600 benchmark rose 0.3 per cent to 423.5 points, putting it within touching distance of its pre-pandemic high of 433.9 reached last February.
The yield on Germany’s 10-year government bond dropped by 0.02 percentage points to minus 0.34 per cent as investors bought the debt. Italy’s equivalent bond yield fell 0.03 percentage points to 0.65 per cent.
At its meeting later on Thursday, investors reckon the ECB’s governing council will discuss a rise in eurozone bond yields — following a sell-off in the US driven by expectations of a jolt of inflation in the American economy — that has pushed the yield on Germany’s benchmark Bund up from around minus 0.55 per cent at the start of the year.
This threatens to increase the…