The ECB, liquidity fear and an expandable shopping list

The ECB did stuff last week, namely it cut rates while downplaying further cuts, tried to protect the banks under its care from negative rates and pledged to boost its balance sheet.

That was considered, after some confusion, impressive by markets, amongst other things because of the ECB’s shift to buying up private assets — “investment-grade euro-denominated bonds issued by non-bank corporations established in the euro area are to be inccluded in QE,” as Deutsche summarised while others wondered aloud about what else the ECB might end up buying.