ECB Raises Benchmark Rate By 25 bps
ECB raised key benchmark rate to 1.25% from 1.00%.
Posts Tagged ‘ECB’
Trichet Paves The Way For A Interest Rise Next Month
Bloomberg:
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the ECB may raise interest rates next month to fight accelerating inflation pressures.
An “increase of interest rates in the next meeting is possible,” told reporters in Frankfurt today after the centralbank left its key rate at a record low of 1 percent. “Strong vigilance is warranted,” Trichet said, adding that any increase would not necessarily be the start of a “series” of moves.
ECB Disappoints
No real change in ECB policy and measures.
Shut Up And Print €!
Spain 10 year government bond spread vs. it’s German peer reached new high of 255 bps. Irish bond spread reached record high of 654 bps.
Markets have lost faith in EU bailout plan and are now finding out (again) that math is quite exact science. CNBC Europe has even sent it’s anchor to Lisbon to provide live coverage of Portugal bailout; they were wrong: the markets skipped Portugal and moved to big story – Spain. Spain has a funding requirement of at least €155bn in 2010. Looks intimidating, especially if we took to account the fact that Ireland was pre-funded for the first half of the 2011 and despite that needed a bailout.
This puts the markets near the point where the only solution is the Ben Bernanke way – buy worthless paper and stuff cash in monetary system. I would do it fast, but I doubt on EU leadership determination. In any case, more the ECB waits the situation will get worse.
ECB’s 7-Day Liquidity Tender Erases Yesterday’s Optimism On European Banking Sector Liquidity
From yesterday’s post: The ECB biggest ever liquidity facility – EUR 442 billion one year maturity is coming due tomorrow. To reduce the strain on the banks, ECB introduced 3 month LRTO (Long-Term Refinancing Operation) which banks could use to refinance the maturing facility. The market estimate for the LTRO size was EUR 220 billion – EUR […]
ECB’s LTRO Goes Better Than Expected
The ECB biggest ever liquidity facility – EUR 442 billion one year maturity is coming due tomorrow. To reduce the strain on the banks, ECB introduced 3 month LRTO (Long-Term Refinancing Operation) which banks could use to refinance the maturing facility. The market estimate for the LTRO size was EUR 220 billion – EUR 250 billion. The […]
Bank of America Repaying TARP
Bank of America announced that it will repay all bail out funds. Bloomberg link: Bank of America to Repay Bailout, Easing CEO Search. The stock is trading up 4% despite massive dilution. No comment. Initial jobless claims were reported at 457.000 vs. 466.000 and 485.000 consensus. Again falling steady. Bloomberg story: U.S. Jobless Claims Unexpectedly […]
Friday Reading
Belisarius is overwhelmed with the work in his new company + he has traveled to Vienna yesterday, so he’s a little bit sidelined concerning the market action. I will post only a few interesting articles in last couple days. Trichet Says ECB Will Withdraw Liquidity Gradually, Bloomberg Fed Makes Monitoring Bank Capital Foremost Concern, Bloomberg […]
Plain Vanilla”Better Than Expected”
As expected equity markets got a nice push up from Alcoa earnings. Looks like the earnings season will probably have similar “better than expected” flavor like the one preceding.The market looks bound to new highs.
The news flow on consumer and credit card credit continues to throw shadows on this equity rally. Consumer credit shrank for the seventh month in a row, contracting 12 billion USD in August to 2.46 trillion USD implying -5.8% annual growth rate. Credit-card debt fell for a record 11th straight month, down 9.9 billion USD. Shrinking at annualized rate of 13.1%. The credit outstanding ended at 899.4 billion USD. This could pose important set back to the recovery of U.S. economy as it shows the lenders are reluctant to extend credit to the economy and consumers are keen to reduce its debt. Consumer credit press release. I will post again the Meredith Whitney article explaining the issue in detail. WSJ story: The Credit Crunch Continues