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Business Daily

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Business Daily: Europe's Negative Interest Bonds

13/04/2015

Europe's Negative Interest Bonds

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Europe's Negative Interest Bonds

Buy some bonds, these days, and European governments actually charge you to own them.

Buy some bonds and European governments actually charge you to own them. Why? Also, floating boaters: the exclusive world of the super-rich and their even more super yachts.

Business Daily looks at a curious phenomenon affecting Europe: the negative value of some of its debt. Buy a number of European bonds these days, for example, and some governments will actually charge you to own them. We ask two experts - Richard Segal, income strategist at the global investment banking firm, Jefferies International, and Katie Martin, European markets editor at the Wall Street Journal - why do people do it, and what effect might all this have on future eurozone stability? Also in the programme, floating boaters: I examine the exclusive world of the super-rich and their even more super-yachts, as Ed Butler (figuratively at least) climbs on board some of the world's costliest craft at an inaugural London boat show. Also, as Facebook decides to stop calling its users "users" and just calls them "people", Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times wonders when corporate chumminess becomes just a bit too much.

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