Italy Is Staging A Big Rally, With Just A Few Hours To Go Before Polls Close

Polls close in the hotly contested national election in just under 6 hours.

The reason why the whole world is watching is that Italy is Europe's largest debt market, and a turn away from the current "reform" path would be seen as significantly destabilizing.

There are worries that strong performances today by either Silvio Berlusconi or Beppe Grillo (the anti-bank populist comedian) will create chaos.

We'll be covering the results LIVE all day.

In the meantime, Italy's FTSE MIB index is up nearly 1%, and yields on the country's borrowing costs are falling nicely.

Here's the stock market rally.