Eurozone member Ireland on Thursday auctioned short-term public debt at a negative yield for the first time as the European Central Bank's stimulus programme drives down borrowing costs across Europe. The National Treasury Management Agency sold 500 million euros ($532.77 million) of six month treasury bills at a yield of minus 0.01 percent.
Negative yields mean investors will pay to lend money to those seeking cash. But they can still make money should for example the eurozone suffer a period of deflation, or negative inflation. Bond prices meanwhile rise when yields drop, handing investors another way of making money from government debt delivering negative rates of return.