Portuguese bond yields up 1% in a month

The Portuguese government is denying that it needs a bailout from the EU and IMF despite the yield rates on Portuguese bonds rising from an average of 6.7% a month ago to 7.6% today.

I don't care, I've stuffed my mattress with US dollars!

The higher the yield rate, the less confidence investors have in the Portuguese economy.  They demand higher yields (interest rates) on the bonds because they're taking on a bigger risk of not getting their money back than if they were buying bonds from other countries.

A month ago investors demanded only 6.7% interest on Portuguese bonds but today it reached 7.6% before the European Central Bank (ECB) intervened and bought bonds with lower yields to reduce the average rate and give the impression that the risk is lower.

Of course it's partly Portuguese money - money they pay into the ECB's Treasury - that's being used to buy Portuguese bonds but to the casual investor the low yield will be a convincing enough con to make them think it's a safe investment and for institutional investors the more money Portugal owes to the ECB, the less likely they are to let it fail.

I said a month ago that Portugal would capitulate within a couple of weeks.  It seems I underestimated their resolve but the outcome is still going to be the same: Portugal will be forced to take a bailout from the EU and the IMF and it will be soon.