Worries around bulging fiscal deficits and soaring borrowing costs around the world continue to be the dominant theme in markets.

Global bonds swooned overnight, sending yields to fresh multidecade highs. The moves later eased, but they illustrate how volatile trading has been this week as investors scrutinize data releases, developments in the Middle East and anything that could provide hints on the trajectory of rates and the economy.

The benchmark 10-year yield traded as high as 5.338% today, its highest intraday level since April 2002, before paring gains.

European bonds followed a similar pattern. Yields jumped in the U.K. and in France, whose budget deficit has made it ground zero in the global bond rout, before reversing course.

Back in the U.S., stocks opened higher. The most actively traded Brent crude futures rose to around the $100-a-barrel mark.