Investors are paying to hold huge chunks of European government debt

Investors are paying to hold large chunks of European government debt - something that would have sounded absolutely absurd in 2011 or 2012.

Goldman Sachs analysts just sent round a chart below showing how dominant negative yields on European government debt have become. Pretty much half of all eurozone government bonds maturing in less than 7 years are offering a negative yield - a small portion of the 7-10 year bonds are doing the same. Although no euro-using countries have 10-year bonds yielding negative rates yet, Germany's are currently offering just a 0.143% return (and falling).

It's pretty amazing:

Goldman Sachs

It's a world away from the euro crisis just a few years ago - check out some of the countries included in the disclaimer there. Ireland's two year bonds have negative yields, while they were above 14% less than four years ago. Spain's 2-year yields are heading that way too: They're currently yielding less than 0.1%.