New Strains Hit Euro, Global Markets

ROME—Uncertainty in financial markets deepened as Italy’s borrowing costs soared to euro-era highs and Prime Minister Mario Monti said European leaders understood an Italian collapse would mean “the end of the euro.”

Europe’s troubles weighed on markets world-wide: Stocks in the U.S. had their worst Thanksgiving week since 1942, the year the U.S. officially set the holiday at its current date. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed 7.6% the past two weeks. The common currency showed its own signs of strain, ending the week down 2.1%, its lowest level in almost two months.

Monday will see a significant test of investor sentiment when Italy holds another debt auction. Belgium, Spain and France are also scheduled to sell new debt during the week. All told, five euro-zone governments are together expected to sell about €19 billion ($25.36 billion) in debt over the week, more than double the past week’s amount.

Investors have dealt with an almost daily dose of bad news out of Europe, which is in the throes of a financial crisis that many fear could spark a global contagion with the potential to be more damaging than the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The renewed rise in Italian bond yields is particularly worrisome. Italy has the world’s third-biggest bond market, and if it were to lose access to funding, the rest of the euro zone would struggle to keep the country solvent. Many economists believe Italy’s €1.9 trillion of debt is too big for even the euro-zone’s stronger economies to bail out.

A statement issued by Mr. Monti’s office Friday said French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had declared Italy the decisive battleground in the euro-zone crisis.

The French and German leaders “said they are aware that a collapse of Italy would inevitably lead to the end of the euro, causing the deadlock of the process of European integration and resulting in unforeseeable consequences,” the statement said.

The three European leaders met behind closed doors in Strasbourg on Thursday. Italy is the euro zone’s third-largest economy, behind Germany and France.

Mr. Monti’s statement Friday is likely to ramp up pressure on Paris and Berlin to act more decisively in combating the crisis. The comments also show how the new leader is seeking to carve out a place for Italy at the currency’s decision-making table, which has long been monopolized by leaders of France and Germany.

A spokesman for Mr. Sarkozy declined to comment on Mr. Monti’s account. A spokesman for Ms. Merkel wasn’t immediately reachable for comment.

Worries about slowing economies and rising debt levels spread beyond the euro zone. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Hungary to “junk” status, citing uncertainty about its ability to meet its debt-reduction goals and its heavy reliance on external investors, which raises the prospect of a flight of capital out of the country.

Also on Friday, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Belgium’s credit rating and a new report put France’s consumer confidence in November at its lowest level since the last recession. And in Japan, government-bond yields rose after the International Monetary Fund warned about the country’s ballooning budget deficit. Some signs emerged that foreign investors, particularly European banks, may be withdrawing money from the country.

In the U.S., stocks dropped only slightly on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 25.77 to 11231.78. The euro was down 0.8% to $1.3239.

But Italy faced the heaviest pressure. Investors demanded Italy pay interest of 6.5% on six-month debt at an auction on Friday, sharply up from the 3.5% rate it paid in October. The lackluster auction fueled a broader flight from Italian debt, driving yields for short- and long-term bonds well above 7%, a level that many economists consider unsustainable.

By comparison, the U.S. pays just 0.063% to borrow for a similar time period, and less than 2% to borrow for 10 years.

“From a purely fundamental perspective, Italy can withstand higher borrowing costs and even a sustained period of lower growth, said Gustavo Bagattini, European economist at RBC Capital Markets. But “the problem is that a confidence issue cannot be solved by simple arithmetic.”

The auction followed a similarly weak sale by Spain on Tuesday, in which the country paid 5.11% on three-month debt. Spain’s 10-year debt yields about 6.67%, also close to the 7% level. It also came just days after even Germany—considered a safe-haven government-bond investment— had trouble selling government debt, underscoring how fears have moved closer to the center of the Continent.

Separately, a closely watched money-market indicator of dollar-funding costs rose Friday to its highest level in more than three years. The cost of swapping three-month euro funds into U.S. dollars rising to its highest level since October 2008, in the wake of Lehman’s collapse.

The troubles come against a backdrop of a euro-zone economy that is showing signs of stalling and perhaps sliding into recession.Figures last week from the European Union show the region’s economy barely grew in the third quarter as much of the bloc contracted.

The strains across the euro zone are adding further pressure to European leaders who have so far failed to quell investor concerns about the heavy debt loads and poor economic prospects of many nations. So far, the European Central Bank has resisted calls from investors and other political leaders and central bankers to step up purchases of bonds to help alleviate some of the stresses.

“There has to be an endgame, and the endgame is approaching,” said Alan Zafran, partner of Luminous Capital, which manages $3.8 billion of assets in Menlo Park, Calif. He said he considers the euro zone as being “on the precipice of a much more pronounced problem.”

Italy will offer up to €750 million of bonds Monday, followed a day later by up to €8 billion of debt. Spain, the bloc’s fourth-largest economy, dropped its plans to launch a new three-year bond and will instead offer three existing bonds maturing in 2015, 2016 and 2017 for an estimated €3.5 billion on Thursday.

Belgium on Monday will sell up to €2 billion of bonds. Like others, its bond yields have been jumping, sparked by difficult budget negotiations, a lack of permanent government for almost a 1½ years and renewed jitters about Belgian banking stability. France plans on Thursday a sale of €3 billion to €4.5 billion of debt.

—Anusha Shrivastava, Emese Bartha and Mitsuru Obe contributed to this article.Corrections & Amplifications
The headline on an earlier version of this article incorrectly said the euro had fallen to euro-era lows.

Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com and Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com