社区

The ecb is finally joining the club of central banks hiking rates with its first hike since 2011. The ECB raises the main refinancing rate by 50bps to 0.50% and depo rate from -0.5% to ZERO (more than they guided). ECB also unveils a new crisis tool called Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI - details will be released after the press conference). The ECB crisis tool purchases are not ‘restricted ex ante’. Further hike will be done in the next meeting(s). Forward guidance dropped due to risk inflation outlook => now each meeting is live and data dependant Our take: - Overall, this ECB meeting is more hawkish than expected and was not an easy option for Mrs Lagarde as the eurozone is facing two additionnal risks on top of record high inflation: 1/ the risk of an energy shock-driven recession (although there was some relief today with announcement of Russian gas to flow again to Europe); 2/ Periphery stress as Italy spreads vs. bund keep widening; - The reason why the ECB was able to hike by 50bps despite the 2 aforementioned risks can be found in the policy statement which shows a pretty explicit link between larger-than-expected rate hike and the presentation of an anti-fragmentation tool (TPI), i.e approving both in one go was the bargain between the hawks and doves. - A super-flexible TPI depending on the severity of the situation is probably one of the good news from this statement and should put a cap on periphery spreads. Market reaction: - Bond yields move higher with a flattening bias: short end +12bps vs long end +8bps - Italy spread: still widening by 12bps but less than before the ECB’s announcement / certainly due to the super flexible TPI’s announcement - Credit: IG and HY spreads are tightening so far due to PEPP reinvestment confirmed at least until 2024 - EUR gets stronger (around +0.5%) - European equities: small positive / EUR banks outperformed Source image: Investing.com Bloomberg, HolgerZ