The mere existence of the bond purchase offer has lowered the borrowing costs for Italy and Spain even though no bonds have been bought.
Moving the financial markets is an easier task, as attested to by the stock rally on the day following the long-anticipated announcement of the bond purchase initiative.
Finally, he chose to repeat the comment about the bond purchase programme last week which I found most interesting at the time, that they were "not eternal and not infinite".
Worse case, the assumption was the ECB would step in and purchase bonds through EFSF or ESM or the direct bond purchase program in place.
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Analysts, however, may watch the ECB bond purchase program closely.
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In their view, reduction in the main policy rate will likely be dependent to some degree on how much consensus is achieved on the design of the new bond purchase program.
If not, remember that the bond you purchase should pay par at maturity, so if nothing changes with the company and you intend to hold the paper until it matures, you should be fine.
On September 6, the ECB outlined its new bond-purchase plan the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT), that was discussed in Rate Cut Resistant.
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Yields in Spain and Italy, which had soared Tuesday, pulled back as investors took some solace from European Central Bank Executive Board member Benoit Coeure, who suggested that the central bank could turn to its bond-purchase program again to ease stress in Spain, where some feared the bond-market selloff would accelerate should 10-year yields top 6%.
Others including Bullard and Lockhart seem happier to take improving data at face value and feel the FOMC should address the need to see out the remainder of its bond purchase plan.
Unlike the Fed, which has engaged in a wide-ranging Quantitative Easing exercise aimed at reducing longer-term interest rates, the ECB has only ever engaged in bond purchases in the most grudging way possible and currently has no active bond purchase program.
Then, with much of the European bond market effectively neutralised by the long-term purchase of government debt by the ECB (we are paid not to think about the market value, says one fund manager), you make a large part of the world's debts difficult to value.
Bond insurance greatly simplified the purchase decision and provided true insurance when mistakes were made.
However, in the last purchase they cut their bailout bond orders to half that amount, adroitly stating holdings in the foreign reserves.
The local currency is also hit by concerns that the U.S. may reduce its bond-purchase program, which has emerged as a key source of funds for investments in emerging markets such as India.
Say the rate on the Spanish bond was 5% and Corzine was able to purchase at a 10% discount to par (100) or 90% of face value.
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He is widely expected to undertake aggressive action that may include "open-ended" asset-purchase programs designed to push bond yields down, boost the supply of money in the banking system and spur lending to businesses.
If it does not, bond investors will regard every purchase it makes as pushing them down the pecking order, thus reducing any residual appetite they might have.
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Monday's decline in oil prices follows the release of a transcript of the Federal Reserve's December meeting showing that policymakers disagreed over how long to keep a bond-purchase program in place.
Equity and corporate-bond markets have also been boosted by quantitative easing (QE), the process whereby central banks create money to purchase (mostly government) bonds.
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The Federal Reserve completed its daily purchase of U.S. long-term Treasury bonds Monday, sending Treasury bond prices up and yields down from the morning's levels.
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