ECB Remains Cautious on Inflation, Italian Spreads Recover on Successful Retail Bond Sale

ECB still rather safe than sorry on inflation, Italian spreads recover on retail bond sale

The European Central Bank’s Vice President Luis de Guindos basically confirmed this position in an interview yesterday. Starting to talk about rate cuts was premature, he argued. While (headline) inflation has been brought down from over 10% to 4.3%, the final stretch will be the most difficult one. And he also pointed to the increased oil price posing a potential challenge if it feeds through to inflation expectations for households and corporates. We would note that, as far as market expectations are concerned, there has been some easing in longer dated inflation swaps. The 5y5y inflation forward has dropped to the lowest levels since July.

While he also suggested the ECB was content with the level in interest rates it had reached he alluded to ending the reinvestments of the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) portfolio as a next step. While there has not been a formal discussion in the Council, this “will arrive sooner or later”.  But the ECB is aware of the backstop the flexible reinvestments of the PEPP still pose for sovereign spreads as a first line of defence, and the temporary widening of the key 10Y spread of Italian government bonds over Bunds to over 200bp will have had ECB officials looking up.

That said, Italian government bond spreads have recovered over yesterday's session despite overall market rates rising, thus budging the recent directionality of the spread. The spread fell below 190bp, tightening close to 6bp versus Friday’s close. One reason cited is the strong showing of the BTP Valore sale on its first day, attracting demand of close to €5 billion, which suggests the overall size could rise towards €15 billion over the course of the next few days

 

Today's events and market view

The bear-steepening momentum seems unbroken and is only accelerated by better-than-expected data, such as yesterday's ISM manufacturing. Today's main data release is the US job opening numbers (JOLTS), an important gauge for the health of the labour market. There is no data of note to be released in the eurozone, but we will have public appearances by ECB officials Philip Lane and Francois Villeroy de Galhau. Note that Germany also observes its reunification national holiday.

In government bond primary markets, Austria sells 10Y and 30Y bonds today, while the UK sells 30Y green gilts.