While we have an intermission

Last night we saw a rare glimpse of the Dark Pool trading conducted by GS Sigma X, I asked you to look at the most actively traded issues and look who was #1

Now that Goldman has it's henchmen (former and current employees and advisors) in the Italian government as well as the ECB, is it surprising to see Italy's UniCredit as the most actively traded issue YESTERDAY with a 6% loss when just today, this breaks...

Italy's BTPs (10 year debt) opened once again above 7% around 7.10% before the ECB came in buying in bulk and sending the yield back down to 6.75%. As recently mentioned ECB interventions are seeing a half life that continues to dwindle. A few hours later, and lord knows how many billions of wasted ECB dollars, the yield broke back above 7% and why?

From the FT

UniCredit has its begging bowl pointing Frankfurt-wards, it seems. Reuters is reporting that the Italian bank will ask the European Central Bank to increase access to ECB borrowing for Italian banks at a meeting on Wednesday, highlighting funding concerns among the country’s lenders.

Italian banks have ramped up their reliance on the ECB for cheaper funding since the summer as the euro zone’s third biggest economy was sucked ever deeper into the region’s debt crisis and its lenders faced sharply higher refinancing costs.

The Reuters source, who declined to be named, said the meeting would be held in Frankfurt in Wednesday. The ECB declined to comment.

Earlier, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported UniCredit Chief Executive Federico Ghizzoni saying he would ask the ECB “to extend the access to ECB liquidity by widening the type of collateral offered.” The request would also be on behalf of smaller Italian banks.

UniCredit’s five-year credit default swaps, measuring the cost of insuring its debt, widened by 40 basis points to 575 basis points after the news, on fears that under current liquidity provisions UniCredit might be under pressure.

Furthermore:

UniCredit's net negative interbank position at the end of September rose to 67 billion euros, from 44 billion in the previous quarter, said Cheuvreux analyst Silvia Benzi. "Going forward, this funding mix is barely sustainable, particularly in a context in which regulators are pushing for a more balanced funding structure," she said in a report.

This is what sent Italian yields soaring again and is it not convenient that a VERY well connected Goldman Sachs had UniCredit as their top traded issue YESTERDAY at a significant loss. I won't say insider information, but because I won't say it doesn't mean.....