It’s QE, Mario, But Not as Investors Know It
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The European Central Bank’s flexible approach to buying 1.1 trillion euros ($1.2 trillion) of euro-area bonds risks making the process more opaque for investors.
Starting on Monday and for the next 19 months, both the ECB and the euro area’s 19 national central banks will seek to buy debt from counterparties in the secondary market. Within limits, their trading desks will have discretion over what they buy and when, in contrast to the Federal Reserve, which issued a calendar for the purchases it made in the U.S.