ECB

As expected, at least based on its less informative press release, the ECB remains in "wait and see" mode by keeping all three interest rates unchanged. The ECB also said that on 8 June the Eurosystem will start making purchases under its corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP). It adds that starting on 22 June, it will conduct the first operation in its new series of targeted longer-term refinancing operations, and will share more details in the press conference.

Full statement:

Monetary policy decisions

 

2 June 2016 

 

One of the recurring concerns voiced by Bank of America's Michael Hartnett is that with May now in the rearview mirror, we are entering "the event risk month" of June (incidentally, over the weekend, the credit strategist presented several ideas how to trade said event risk, either bullish or bearish). Now it is UBS' turn to reiterate the warning that June may see a spike in volatility due to "an unusual number of known unknowns."

Over the years, first on fringe blogs who dared to point out long ago that the emperors are actually naked, and increasingly everywhere else there has been speculation that locked deep inside the ivory towers of central banks one could find either career academics or Goldman Sachs alumni who were convinced they were all powerful, all capable deities, who in addition to printing money out of thin air, are comfortable micromanaging not only the world's capital markets but also economies. Just like gods, or "magicians"... but really just insane nutjobs.

So much for QE as the answer to the EU’s problems.

In 2012, during the depth of the EU banking crisis which nearly took the entire EU financial system down, Mario Draghi stated that he would do “whatever it takes” to hold the EU together.

As was widely expected, moments ago the "sleepy" ECB announced that all its three key rates remain unchanged: "the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.40% respectively." There was one notably addition: the ECB announced it has "started to expand our monthly purchases under the asset purchase programme to €80 billion" as was also expected considering the tremendous rip in European corporate bonds.

Full statement: