Contagion stopped in Europe by China!!!

Asian stocks rose, helping the region’s benchmark index rebound from a one-year low, as oil and copper climbed, while the euro weakened toward a 10-year low against the yen before Italy sells bonds today.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.5 percent as of 1:05 p.m. after yesterday falling to the lowest level since Aug. 31, 2010. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures advanced 0.4 percent. oil gained 0.8 percent in New York, copper jumped 0.9 percent and gold rose 0.9 percent, Europe’s 17-nation currency slipped 0.2 percent to 105.42 yen. The cost of insuring Asia bonds against default snapped a three-day increase.


Italy will seek to raise as much as 7 billion euros ($9.5 billion) in a bond sale, after a government official said yesterday the nation held talks with China about potential investments in the euro region’s third-largest economy. The chance of a default by Greece in the next five years has soared to 98 percent as Prime Minister George Papandreou fails to reassure investors that his country can survive the euro-region crisis, credit-default swaps showed.


“The idea that the Chinese may step up and buy Italian bonds puts to halt the idea of contagion,” Jim Bianco, Chicago- based president of Bianco Research LLC, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The big question is whether they actually follow through and buy Italian bonds.”