STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 25 January 2012

[xchrom]

49. Ireland in first test of bond markets since 2010

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_IRELAND_FINANCIAL_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-01-25-10-43-34

DUBLIN (AP) -- Ireland tapped the bond markets Wednesday for the first time in 16 months in a significant test of investor sentiment toward the bailed-out nation.

The National Treasury Management Agency asked holders of euro11.8 billion ($15.2 billion) of bonds due for repayment in January 2014 - the month after Ireland's EU-IMF loans are supposed to run out - to swap them for new government bonds maturing in February 2015.

Analysts welcomed the move as likely to be the first of many to kick 2014 bond repayments farther down the fiscal road. They forecast that between euro1 billion and euro2 billion in 2014 securities would be swapped in Wednesday's offer.

Cathal O'Leary, an analyst at NCB Stockbrokers in Dublin, called the surprise exercise "a very smart move by the NTMA (because) it lessens the 2014 funding cliff."