European bonds steady as traders look ahead to policymaker comments

By Alun John

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Euro zone bonds steadied on Tuesday ahead of closely-watched remarks from policymakers against the backdrop of increased volatility after last week's policy meetings by central banks and fresh economic data.

Despite all the gyrations, yields on the 10-year German Bund is trading largely where it was a week ago. Ten-year Bunds , the benchmark for the euro zone, were up 3 basis points at 2.32%.

Italy's 10-year yield was up 5 bps at 4.198%, leaving the closely-watched gap between the two at 186.9 bps , unchanged on the day.

European bonds have had a busy past few trading days. The German 10-year yield was 2.291% at last Wednesday's close, before dropping as low as 2.042% the next day after markets took a dovish message from a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting.

It then rebounded sharply, after ECB hawks emphasised on more rate increases and as surprisingly strong U.S. jobs data raised bets of more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

ING analysts said markets will be looking to public appearances from ECB board member Isabel Schnabel and Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who they say could try to "set the record straight after dramatic market reaction to last week's policy meetings."

"Helped by a bumper jobs report in the US, and hawkish post-meeting ECB comments, we would argue that both Schnabel and Powell face an uphill struggle to move yields up much further," the analysts said in a client note.

"10-year Bund yields for instance are 25bp off their post-ECB meeting trough already, to a level we would call low but not strikingly so. The same goes for 10Y Treasury yields."

A bond's yield moves inversely to its price.

Investors are also watching bond auctions from several European issuers, including the Netherlands and Germany.

The German two-year yield was up 1 bp at 2.61%, while Italian two-year yields rose 3 bps to 3.174%. (Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Arun Koyyur)