The euro slid toward its weakest level since 2001 against the yen and Italian government bonds fell as the nation prepares to sell securities due in 2016, 2018 and 2020 today. U.S. equity-index futures and European stocks erased earlier gains. The 17-nation currency depreciated 1 percent to 104.59 yen and decreased 0.7 percent to $1.3591 as of 8:54 a.m. in London. Italian two-year note yields increased 14 basis points to 4.65 percent. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures lost 0.8 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.3 percent, erasing a rally of as much as 1.4 percent, as bank shares slumped. Italy will seek to raise as much as 7 billion euros ($9.5 billion) selling bonds today, after a government official said yesterday the nation held talks with China about potential investments in the euro area’s third-largest economy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she won’t let Greece go into an “uncontrolled insolvency” because of the risk of contagion for other countries, according to an interview with Inforadio. The prospect of China buying Italian bonds “is a move in the right direction,” said Nader Naeimi, a Sydney-based strategist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd., which manages almost $100 billion. “But I don’t think it will solve the deep root of the problem as the funding requirement of Italy is very large. You could slow the bleeding, but it won’t heal the wound,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview. To contact the reporter on this story: Shiyin Chen in Singapore at schen37@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Shelley Smith at ssmith118@bloomberg.net

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