Bonds buoyed by Greek return as shares fizzle out

LONDON, Apr 10 (Reuters): Greece's stunning return to the bond market buoyed European fixed income assets on Thursday, enabling euro zone bond prices to strengthen and outperform flat equity markets.
Global equities had earlier risen after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting tempered concerns over future US interest rate rises, although those gains later fizzled out.
The MSCI All-Country World index rose 0.2 per cent while the similar MSCI World Index, which only tracks stocks from developed economies, inched up by 0.1 per cent.
In Europe, the MSCI Europe index edged down by 0.2 per cent while the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares slipped 0.5 per cent.
Nevertheless, investors looked optimistically to Greece's much-heralded return to the bond markets on Thursday for further evidence that Europe's economic recovery is gathering pace.
Just two years after being at the epicentre of the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis, Greece launched a 3-billion euro ($4.2 billion) five-year bond offering a yield of 4.95 per cent.
The country's deputy prime minister Evangelos Venizelos said the sale had been at least eight times oversubscribed.
Commerzbank strategist Michael Leister said the sale showed the country was on track in terms of fighting back from a deep economic slump.
"It's not a particularly cheap deal for them but they are on the right track and it shows the debt crisis has eased significantly," he said.
The Fed minutes released on Wednesday fuelled a rally on Wall Street, where all three major US stock indexes ended up more than 1 per cent.
Financial markets also pushed out expectations of a first Fed rate hike by about six weeks, to July 2015, trading in interest-rate futures showed, while the MSCI Emerging Market index rose 0.6 per cent.
The Fed's minutes also weighed on the US dollar, which traded flat against a basket of six major currencies.