In the bond markets, the yield - or interest rate - on Italian 10-year bonds approached 6%, the highest in at least a decade.

The yield on the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond is fast approaching 8 percent, a level it has not reached since Dec. 1.

The tone was set early for bulls to jump in on weakness, as the yield on the long bond approached 6.20 percent.

THE combined yield of these investments approaches 7 percent.

These yields did not approach the high of 22,000 tons that had been produced in the peak year of 1974, however, and they declined slightly after 1985.

But as the price of the 30-year bond fell and its yield approached 7 percent, buyers began to emerge, traders said.

Bond traders said purchases accelerated as yields approached 7.2 percent.

The yield on the Treasury's long bond approached 8 percent, on traders' expressed fear of inflation.

The average yield can approach between 10 and 19 t/ha.

In the last six trading days, the yield on the Treasury's two-year note has jumped a third of a percentage point and is approaching 4.5 percent.