Risk perception for most of the world's countries have improved in the past year, according to a Standard Chartered analysis of credit default swaps (CDS), contrasting with deterioration in France, Italy, the United States and Germany, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. CDS are derivatives used by investors to hedge against a default or restructuring of debt. The higher the risk of default, the higher the CDS spread.

A group of Rickmers Holding AG’s bondholders have raised concerns regarding the German shipping firm’s restructuring, The Wall Street Journal reported. The criticism comes weeks after the Rickmers’s owner agreed to cede control of the shipping company to creditors to stave off an insolvency filing. The restructuring, if approved by creditors, would see HSH Nordbank AG, bondholders and possibly another bank take a 75.1% stake in exchange for debt forgiveness. Rickmers’s current owner, Bertram R.C. Rickmers, would be let with a 24.9% stake.

The European Central Bank will soon be able to adopt a more optimistic tone on the euro-area economy -- a possible first step in winding down stimulus -- according to Executive Board member Yves Mersch, Bloomberg News reported. “The recovery in the euro area is gaining more and more traction,” Mersch said in a speech in Tokyo on Monday.

Creditors of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide will have to wait years to find out whether they will recover all that they are owed, as the cost of liquidating the institution that was established to wind down the failed lenders has soared to €222.6 million, the Irish Times reported. The liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) said on Friday that they held €1.919 billion of net cash as of February 6th, the fourth anniversary of the Government’s decision to liquidate the company.

Loss-making airline Alitalia, which asked to be put under special administration on Tuesday, had debts of around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) as of the end of February, Italy's government said on Saturday, Reuters reported. In a document marking the opening of the special administration process and the appointment of three commissioners to run the airline, the government said Alitalia had current liabilities of around 2.3 billion euros and assets worth 921 million.

Central bankers, economists, politicians and pundits who favour accommodative monetary policy are the targets of various criticisms, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. That inflation would follow monetary stimulus was the main complaint immediately following the financial crisis. This critique has grown less popular as inflation has failed to arrive.

With just three days to go before the final round of French elections, a sense of calm pervades markets as Emmanuel Macron looks set to prevail over rival Marine Le Pen, Bloomberg News reported. Risk gauges show investors are mostly ruling out the possibility of a presidential win by anti-euro candidate Le Pen after they pared hedging following her centrist opponent’s thumping victory in the preliminary ballot. Opinion polls consistently indicate a 20 percentage point advantage for Macron, and a snap survey by polling firm Elabe adjudged him the winner in a television debate on Wednesday.

No debt relief measures are being readied for Greece, Germany's Finance Ministry said on Thursday after the Handelsblatt business daily reported measures were under consideration, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The implementation of reforms that Greece agreed to in return for aid would help ensure the sustainability of the country's debt, the ministry said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters. "No debt relief is being prepared," it added.

Portuguese bond yields fell to a five-month low last week amid a broader European relief rally after Emmanuel Macron’s first-round victory in voting for France’s next president. Philip Brown, head of sovereign debt origination at Citi, points out that Portuguese government bonds have been the only eurozone sovereign market to show positive returns in the year so far, returning 3.9 per cent.

Retail Acquisitions, the company owned by former bankrupt Dominic Chappell and through which he made his ill-fated 2015 purchase of BHS, is to be put into liquidation, more than a year after the department store chain fell into administration, the Financial Times reported. Insolvency proceedings were launched against Retail Acquisitions last October as part of a wider attempt to track the assets of the failed high street group, but had stalled amid appeals from Mr Chappell.