It's been 16 months since the European Central Bank began its voyage into the unknowable in March 2015, and as The FT notes, this week marks a milestone – it has now purchased over EUR 1 trillion in government (and corporate) bonds since it began QE.
The ECB buys bonds through the eurozone’s national central banks and in line with a member state’s overall contribution to eurozone GDP.
Among its three largest economies, the ECB has snapped up a total of €238bn in German Bunds, €189bn in French paper, and €164bn in Italian bonds since last March.
Policymakers announced they would begin buying non-bank corporate debt earlier this year. Total ECB holdings of company bonds now stand at €20.5bn, with asset backed securities hitting €19.91bn.
The ECB will be meeting for its lateset monthly policy decision on Thursday and is poised to announce a six-month extension to its QE programme until September 2017.
According to estimates from Credit Agricole, the ECB will have hoovered up over half the eligible universe of government debt by the end of the year, forcing policymakers to tweak their QE rules in a bid to keep hitting its €80bn a month purchase target.
The trillion euro surge is driving the ECB's balance sheet up towards The Fed's…
The big problem is – it's not helping the real world…
But don't expect it to stop anytime soon. If the following utterly insane words from another ECB member show…
- *ECB'S NOWOTNY: MON POLICY PROVED `MORE POTENT' THAN THOUGHT
- *ECB'S NOWOTNY: EUROSYSTEM HAS SHOWN IT CAN ALWAYS DO MORE
That's just total bullshit…
Simply put – it's either pure propaganda-driven lies or the people pulling the strings are blinded by faith and aiming for the cognitively dissonant world record.
via http://ift.tt/2ciTlxy Tyler Durden