The European Central Bank has released a monthly update that contains details of its corporate bond or quantitative easing programme. The ECB has so far bought €10.4 billion of corporate debt. This number includes over 458 bonds by 175 separate issuers. Nearly all of the bond purchases (93%) has occurred in the secondary market with only 7% purchase in primary issues.
20% of all the bonds purchased have been bought at a negative yield and it would appear that a major game for the investment banks and traders is to buy bonds in the hope that the ECB will buy the bonds off them. Hardly stimulatory for the economy.
The report also included a breakdown of the bonds purchased by industry segment with the largest company sector being consumer goods.
