Bonds: Yields drops as Deutsche Bank slumps again, US election debate looms

These were the movements among some of the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:

US: 1.58% (-4bp)
UK: 0.70% (-3bp)
Germany: -0.12% (-3bp)
France: 0.18% (-3bp)
Italy: 1.18% (-3bp)
Spain:0.92% (-5bp)
Portugal: 3.38% (+0bp)
Japan: -0.06% (-2bp)
Greece: 8/40% (+1bp)

Investors pushed yields higher across the board amid renewed pressure on some of the Eurozone´s weakest lenders and ahead of the result of a key presidential election debate Stateside.

Shares in Deutsche Bank slumped another 7% following a report in German weekly Focus according to which Chancellor Angela Merkel had reportedly ruled-out state aid for the lender.

Meanwhile, and in the States, investors were expectant ahead of Monday night´s televised one-on-one debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

By some accounts, over 100m people were expected to tune in.

Over the past 40 years, the opinion poll leader after the first debate had gone on to win the elections, according to Deutsche Bank´s Frank Kelly.

Bloomberg Politic´s latest national poll showed each candidate had 46% of voters´ support, but with Trump edging past his Democratic rival by a margin of 43% to 41% when third party candidates were included.

On Friday afternoon, in testimony to the European parliament, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi called on countries in the single currency bloc to do more in terms of structural policies and otherwise to "unleash" growth.

Draghi also argued against the UK being given special treatment in its negotiations for access to the single market.

He was echoed by Vitor Constancio, who in remarks prepared for a speech in Rome said that absent fiscal and economic policies playing their role, "we risk being trapped in a low growth, low interest rate equilibrium."

On the other side of the Pond, in an interview granted on Sunday to Fox, Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker said he thought "the case was strong this past week for another rate increase, given how tight labor markets, given how close we are to our inflation target."

"I think the case (for raising rates) [in December] is going to be strong based on what I see now," Lacker added.

Yet the Fed would need to wait and see how the data came in, the US policymaker said.

Markets thus appeared to brush off the better-than-expected IFO German business confidence and US new home sales data referencing the months of September and August, respectively, which were published earlier in the day.