ECB’s First Week of Corporate Bond Buying Smashes Expectations
- ECB bought 2.7 billion euros of company debt in a week
- Analysts forecast monthly purchases of around 3 billion euros
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The European Central Bank started its second round of corporate bond purchases by purchasing in a week an amount that analysts expected it to buy in a month.
The central bank bought almost 2.8 billion euros ($3 billion) of company debt securities in the week to Nov. 8, according to data released Monday. It was the second-largest weekly purchase figure since the ECB first adopted the strategy, known as quantitative easing, in Jun. 2016. The bank suspended the program last December and restarted it at the beginning of this month as growth flagged across the euro area.