Just a few weeks before the ECB’s key meeting (4th June), Lagarde has responded to Germany with the biggest weekly purchase since the start of the pandemic: 44 billion euros, 54% higher than the weekly average since April. Furthermore, Olli Rehn affirmed that the German Constitutional Court’s ruling could have an impact on the central banks’s ability to exercise its price stability mandate.
Intermoney | On Friday, the first support measures within the EU worth €540 Bn were given the final go-ahead, but there are still some clouds around. There is a general requirement for accessing these loans for all countries, linked only to their use for direct or indirect Covid-19 health costs. There is no particular conditionality. In Italy, however, there are concerns about the conditionality of ESM resources in the future. If the recovery allows it, the conditions would already be a reality in 2022 at the latest.
David Page (Head of Macro Research at AXA Investment Managers) | The Bank of England (BoE) today announced its monetary policy decision for May. It left the Bank Rate unchanged at 0.10% as widely expected, by unanimous vote. It also left QE unchanged, leaving the Asset Purchase Facility target unchanged at £645bn. This was in line with the median consensus forecast, but we had expected a £100bn increase in QE today as the current programme is set to expire in early July. This was by split decision, with two members voting for an immediate £100bn increase. The majority of the Committee decided to wait for “more information… that was likely to become available over the coming weeks”, but these members “all” acknowledged prospective weakness in the economy and downside risks to the medium term outlook “might necessitate further monetary policy action to support the economy in the future”. We fully expect the MPC to increase QE, probably by £100bn at its next meeting on 18 June.
The German Constitutional Court surprised everyone yesterday with a ruling that some of the European Central Bank (ECB)’s actions, carried out as part of its 2015 bond purchase programme (PSPP), are unconstitutional. This decision clashes directly with the judgement of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The decision does not call into question the entire debt purchase programme, but rather the part relating to the Bundesbank’s intervention.
Banca March | The European Central Bank expects an economic contraction of 5.5% in 2020 and a recovery in 2021 to growth of 4.3%. In this context of deteriorating growth forecasts, the ECB continues to increase its asset purchases to support the region’s economy. Even though, it does not reveal the composition of the purchases within this specific programme of support for European economies hit by COVID-19, we can take a look at its usual programme of sovereign debt purchases (known as the PSPP).
Yves Bonzon (Julius Baer) | On the fiscal side all countries might provide support measures that are quantitatively and qualitatively strong enough to ensure recovery when the containment ends. The way the required transfers from governments to their private sectors are financed, in essence the chosen mix of tax increases, borrowing from private savings and monetisation, will play a determining role on the recovery capacity of different countries and regions.
Philppe Waechter (Ostrum AM) The main point on the ECB meeting is the large uncertainty contained in the GDP forecasts. Last March, the ECB forecast was +0.8% for 2020. Today, Christine Lagarde said the gdp was expected to drop between -6 and -12% for 2020. That’s a huge revision reflecting uncertainty for the foreseeable future.
In the midst of the Q1 2020 earnings season, the financial sector is beginning to protect itself from the more than likely economic shock of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, The European Comisssion offered European banks temporary relief from capital regulations that could boost credit by up to €450 Bn this year. Brussels argued that the economic damage caused by the coronavirus crisis would justify a “selective” relaxation of the regulations introduced in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse.
Lidia Treiber (Wisdom Tree) | As the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns begin to more deeply unveil the economic impact that these severe measures have had on different European countries, the cost of funding has started to rise sharply for hard hit countries such as Italy and Spain. The spread of peripheral sovereign bonds over German sovereign bonds has begun to widen as investors become concerned about the rising debt to gross domestic product (GDP) levels for countries with already weaker fundamentals.
Bank of America Global Research | On 22 April 2020, the ECB announced temporary measures to mitigate the impact of possible rating downgrades on collateral availability. This includes the acceptance of certain non-investment grade rated assets as collateral for its credit operations. In the collateral easing measures announced on 7 April, the central bank announced plans to temporarily mitigate effects from rating downgrades.