Portugal and Martin Leissl Bloomberg

European Central Bank: In the three months before the quantitative easing started on March 9, Portugal bonds earned three percentage points more than the mean for the region as a whole, according to Bloomberg. Portugal, along with its Mediterranean neighbors, then underperformed the group, which on April 30 gave up the last of its QE-fueled gains.ECB purchases didn’t quite make euro-area debt a one-way bet. Photographer: Martin Leissl/Bloomberg The last of the gains made after the start of the European Central Bank bond-buying program vanished from the euro-area sovereign market last week. A sudden rise in German bond yields last week showed the vulnerability of its euro peers. Since the ECB started buying bonds, we’ve seen some signs of opportunistic behavior on the part of governments, so generally we’ve seen more supply than expected, said Elwin de Groot, senior euro-area strategist at Rabobank in Utrecht, Netherlands. Investors didn’t like Portugal seeking to lock in lower borrowing costs by selling longer-dated bonds, a strategy that also led to higher yields when Italy attempted it in March. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.