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By: Alex Cho with Fitrade
Quote from: Credit Suisse
The ECB provided another substantial liquidity injection to the financial system in the euro area. The second 3-year LTRO (long-term refinancing operation) provided a total of nearly â¬530bn in fixed rate funding, slightly above the consensus median expectation of â¬450bn. No further 3-year funding operations have been announced but we would not exclude them if events on the economic and/or political front turn more sour again. (end quote)
The recent decline in the EUR/USD pair has everything to do with LTRO. As the ECB accumulates a total of 3.1T Euros in European Debt on its balance sheet. Which means that 3.1T Euros have been âcreatedâ, or to be more accurate. The ECB issued more currency, and bought bond notes from the secondary market in order to inflate bond values, drop interest rates, while reducing the supply of bonds on the secondary markets. Forcing large institutions to invest in other assets that have equivalent scale like the stock market, or chase other high yielding assets like foreign treasury bonds with lower credit ratings.
The theme is that both the federal reserve and ECB have halted their rapid issuance of currency. Because both forms of policy easing is over in both the USA and Europe. We have to compare the current Federal reserve rate to the ECB rate to determine whoâs inflating the economy faster.
From: Global-Rates
ECB Interest Rates Over Previous Year
Currently the ECB has a 1% interest rate which is less inflationary than what the Federal Reserve has opted for in terms of interest rate policy.
From: Global-Rates
Federal Reserve Interest Rates Over Previous Year
Currently the Federal reserve has a .25% interest rate. So going forward the US economy is going to inflate at a faster rate, which should, and actually has lead to the reversal in the EUR/USD pair.
EUR/USD has recovered after I highlighted the pivot point on the chart in my previous blog post, and I believe the EUR/USD will continue to go higher based on the comparative interest rate structure between the two economic zones.
The downside is that the EUR/USD falls lower on tail risk which would lead to another round of LTRO, or if economic growth were to miss expectations leading to ECB interest rate cuts. Any mix of negative data from Europe in other words, will promptly reverse the positive trend in the EUR/USD.