Masturbation fantasies?

The sharp market moves sent shudders across Europe, raising concern that this could be a moment when its markets would finally seize up in the way they did after Lehman Brothers collapsed in the United States in 2008. But they did not appear to set off quick policy reactions from European officials or, apart from bond buying by the European Central Bank, by central banks around the world including the Federal Reserve.The new euro-era record for Italian bond yields of 7.48 percent is close to the level that earlier prompted financial bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. One of Europe’s big clearing houses, where traders settle bond purchases, raised its margin requirements in response to the perceived increased riskiness of Italian debt, further unnerving investors. “Italy is not nearly in as bad of a situation as some observers may suspect,” said Marc Chandler, an economist at Brown Brothers Harriman. The sharp market moves sent shudders across Europe, raising concern that this could be a moment when its markets would finally seize up in the way they did after Lehman Brothers collapsed in the United States in 2008. But they did not appear to set off quick policy reactions from European officials or, apart from bond buying by the European Central Bank, by central banks around the world including the Federal Reserve.The new euro-era record for Italian bond yields of 7.48 percent is close to the level that earlier prompted financial bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. One of Europe’s big clearing houses, where traders settle bond purchases, raised its margin requirements in response to the perceived increased riskiness of Italian debt, further unnerving investors. The stocks of European banks that hold large amounts of Italian debt fell. And the cost of insuring Italian debt as measured by credit default swaps rose to record levels.