(BFW) ECB Lends Banks EU529.5 Bln for 3 Years; Estimate EU470 Bln
Somewhat higher than average expectations, with 800 banks taking the free money. I’m not sure what it does for the market. There should be absolutely no funding pressure on banks in Europe this year. All that and a bit more should be taken care of. Given some hype that a really big number was good (or that a really small number would be good) I’m not sure what this does. A lot of expectations had been built in. The fact that the ECB has said there is unlikely to be another round, that could have increased the amount demanded.
Is 800 banks a good number? It will be very curious to see the break-out. 800 banks relying on the ECB does bring up the vision of zombies wandering through the streets aimlessly.
Initial reaction seems to be mildly positive. The market has added slightly to some early gains. My gut feel is these early gains won’t be held. Credit seems to have anticipated too much, and with LTRO behind us, we can focus on the continued problems with the Greek bailout (which don’t seem priced in) and likely disappointment in numbers out of Spain in particular (what will their 2012 budget target, that they will miss anyways, be).
On the other hand, by the time the US gets in, we can get back to following AAPL around, which is all we seem to do these days.
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ECB Lends Banks EU529.5 Bln for 3 Years; Estimate EU470 Bln
2012-02-29 10:26:27.932 GMT
By Levent Kucukreisoglu
Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) — ECB 3-year LTRO results announced.
* Total allotted: EU529.5b
* Total bid: EU529.5b
* Total number of bidders: 800
* Tenor: 1092 Days
* Settle Date: 3/01/2012
* Maturity: 2/26/2015
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To contact the reporter on this story:
Levent Kucukreisoglu in London at +44-20-7073-3612 or
lkucukreisog@bloomberg.net