PARIS — Global stocks and the euro rose Wednesday as investors awaited an auction of Portuguese government debt for signs of stress levels in the euro-zone.
Market watchers have been fixated for much of this year on the rising borrowing costs of of so-called “peripheral” euro-zone members, including Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, that are having trouble righting their public finances after the financial crisis wrecked asset values and economic growth stagnated.
The spreads, or difference in interest-rates of those countries’ bonds over their German equivalents — considered the safest in Europe — has in many cases reached the highest levels since the creation of the euro in 1999.
An €85 billion, or $113 billion, rescue Sunday of Ireland by the International Monetary Fund and European Union, following a rescue last spring for Greece, has so far done little to stop fears that the contagion will spread.
On Monday and Tuesday, ominously, Italian and Belgian bonds also began to show signs of strain.
Investors were watching for the results of an auction of €500 million of Portuguese 12-month Treasury bills. Expectations were that the state would have to pay its highest rate since the debut of the euro to sell the paper.
“The market’s attention is likely to turn to Portugal’s sovereign, which at current levels of interest rates and growth rates is less dramatically but quietly insolvent,” Willem Buiter, the chief economist of Citigroup, wrote Monday in a research note. “We consider it likely that it will need to access the European Financial Stability Facility soon.”
The credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned late Tuesday that it was putting Portuguese debt on a watch list for a possible downgrade, a move an S&P analyst, Frank Gill, said “reflects our view of increased risks to the government’s creditworthiness.”
He cited “uncertainty about the government’s possible recourse to official funding and the consequences that obtaining such funding could have for the position of private-sector creditors vis-a-vis official creditors after 2013.”
In morning trading, Italian, Spanish, Irish, Belgian and Portuguese bonds were all showing gains after a poor showing Tuesday.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, rose 1.3 percent, while the FTSE 100 index in London added 1 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.7 percent, and the DAX in Frankfurt rose 1.2 percent.
Trading in U.S. index futures suggested Wall Street stocks would open with a strong bounce into positive territory. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 0.4 percent lower Tuesday, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 0.6 percent.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies. The euro rose to $1.3054 from $1.2983 late Tuesday in New York, and the British pound rose to $1.5589 from $1.5562. But the dollar ticked up against the Japanese currency, rising to 83.84 yen from 83.69 yen, and rose to 1.0053 Swiss francs from 1.0035 francs.
Asian shares were mostly higher. The Tokyo benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average closed with a gain of 0.5 percent, while the main Sydney market index, the S&P/ASX 200, was up just under 0.1 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rose 1.1 percent and and in Shanghai the composite index rose 0.1 percent.
U.S. crude oil futures for January delivery rose 80 cents to $84.92 a barrel. Comex gold $4.20 to $1,390.20 an ounce.
