Bonds: Eurozone yields fall back in delayed reaction to Draghi

These were the movements in the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:

US: 1.98% (+5bp)

UK: 1.58% (+4bp)

Germany: -0.27% (-4bp)

France: 0.62% (-6bp)

Spanish 1.49% (-10bp)

Italy 1.33% (-13bp)

Japan: -0.01% (+1bp)

Greece: 8.91% (-2bp)

Portugal: 2.94% (-19bp)

Long-dated Gilts moved lower in tandem with US Treasury notes at the end of the week, as they typically do, with traders taking positions ahead of the Monetary Policy Committee and US Federal reserve interest rate decisions next week.

Neither central bank was expected to make a move, nevertheless guidance from the Fed would be closely scrutinised given how many economists still consider a further rate hike in April or June 2015 to be a distinct possibility.

As well, traders had priced-in a 51% probability of a second rate hike for when Fed rate-setters met in June. One month ago the odds of such a scenario were pegged at under 2.0%, according to calculations from Bloomberg.

In the UK on the other hand, the possibility of further fiscal tightening measures in Wednesday's Budget might keep the MPC on the 'dovish' side of things, particularly ahead of the 23 June referendum on continued membership of the European Union.

On the other side of the Channel, the realisation that the European Central Bank had over-delivered on almost every metric - except weakening the currency - appeared to sink in, with market participants undoing many of the previous session's 'risk-off' trades.

The unexpectedly poor reaction to the ECB's barrage of measures was triggered by its President's remarks that, at the current juncture, the governing council, the ECB's rate-setting organ, did not envisage a need for further rate cuts.

As at least one well-known analyst mused that, while perhaps a statement of the obvious, the exact state of markets' mood on Thursday may have worked against Mario Draghi.

Furthermore, the ECB appeared to have gone out of its way to add to the selling pressure on its currency as a result of its decisions.