Some traders claim they have sold government bonds of countries in the euro area central banks countries under the ECB's Quantitative Easing programme. This was reported by the Reuters agency.
A trader at a European bank said it sold German, French and Belgian government bonds to their respective central banks. Another simply said that national central banks are buying, but did not provide any further details.
A third trader explained that they have received price inquiries from the German and Italian central bank and a fourth trader said they heard the Bundesbank is buying the five-year stretch.
From today, the ECB's quantitative easing extends to public securities, for a total of 60 billion purchases per month on the secondary market until September 2016, and in any case until inflation returns towards the lower but close to 2% target.
