Italy, Japan, China debt insurance costs rise on virus worries

LONDON (Reuters) – The cost of insuring exposure to debt issued by governments from China and Japan to Italy rose sharply on Friday as global fears over the spread of the coronavirus continued to climb.

Five-year credit default swaps for Italy , which has Europe’s largest concentration of cases, jumped 22 basis points (bps) from Thursday’s close to a near six-month high of 154 bps, IHS Markit data showed.

Italian lenders UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo also saw their CDS levels rise 18 bps to 105 bps and 107 bps respectively.

In Asia, Japan CDS jumped 4 bps to 23 bps while China where the virus originated added 7 bps to 49 bps – both hitting the highest level since mid-August.

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker; edited by Marc Jones)