The ECB bought €603m of government bonds last week, versus €2.7bn previously. Volumes in the market are pretty thin at the moment, thus the bank can probably get more for its buck. Clever.
On the other hand — the lack of liquidity has also frozen high yields in place all over the eurozone periphery, ready for a January full of that nasty rollover risk in the new year.
We hope they know what they’re doing. We’ve added our own update to RBC Capital Markets’ recent chart of ECB sovereign bond purchases in the meantime (red highlighting ours):
Related link:
What the ECB’s bond-buying has lost – FT Alphaville