BlackRock's Rieder sees European bonds as attractive

By Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top BlackRock Inc bond fund manager Rick Rieder said he sees some European bonds as increasingly attractive after central bankers there disclosed they have weighed another interest rate cut.

"We have a good portion of our risk in Europe today," said Rieder, BlackRock's chief investment officer of fundamental fixed income and manager of the BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund. "I do think the policy's going to be aggressive."

Speaking at a Boston conference of the CFA Institute, Rieder said he sees as attractive "parts" of the credit markets and bonds at Europe's periphery.

"We think they make sense," he said. "The policy's going to be aggressive."

The European Central Bank held rates steady as expected at a meeting in Malta on Thursday after cutting rates to rock-bottom levels over a year ago.

In a news conference Thursday, ECB President Mario Draghi said the central bank would review in December what more it could do to tackle the threat of weak Eurozone inflation, adding that the bank discussed a further rate cut.

Rieder said it will be "hard" for the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike the rates it controls at its meeting in December because "the economy's coming off the boil." And he added that he also sees some emerging-market sovereign debt as attractive.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Chris Reese and Christian Plumb)

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