Fondshuizen over steun van de ECB

George Efstathopoulos, portfoliomanager bij Fidelity International

“After disappointing in December, this is a bold stance from Draghi and the ECB, which should be positive for both financial markets but more importantly the real economy.  Since the BoJ introduced negative interest rates by adopting a three-tiered system earlier in the year, European investors have been worried about a similar scheme that would further compress net interest margins for European banks and as a result impact their profitability but also their ability to increase lending and risk taking."

"Instead, via the new series of LTRO the banks will now essentially be subsidized to lend. This is a big positive for the banking sector, which has been oversold and under pressure in recent months. The increase of the asset purchase programme 20b euros is also bolder than market had expected . Additionally, the eligible universe has now expanded to include investment grade bonds, a positive for risk assets, at a time when corporate bond spreads are trading at recent year highs. Periphery sovereign bonds also to benefit as ECB can now buy more of their outstanding debt.”

Mitul Patel, Head of Interest Rates Henderson Global Investors

"While the expansion of the asset purchase programme to include corporate bonds will likely steal the headlines, arguably more important is the pivot by the ECB towards quantitative easing and lending operations as primary tools for stimulating the economy over ever more negative rates. While the ECB lowered deposit rates by 10 basis points (bp) to -0.4% and refi rates by 5bp to 0% at today’s meeting, they believe it is unlikely that rates can be taken much lower than current levels without unwanted risk, although they still believe the move to the current negative level of rates has overall had a positive impact."

"Ahead of the meeting we had closed our positions which looked for lower shorter dated European swap rates, and positioned for a rise in 10-year bund yields. We continue to believe a repricing to higher yields is warranted, as the guidance that rates are unlikely to decrease further, the move to purchasing corporate bonds, and the increase in the issue/issuer limit to 50% is likely to reduce the bund scarcity premium."

Léon Cornelissen, hoofdeconoom van Robeco

“It is clear that the ECB wanted to surprise on the upside. The old TLTRO lending rate was 0%, but the new one will be as low as the deposit rate of minus 0.4%, which is an interesting move because one criticism of negative rates is that it undermines the business models of banks. But with a negative TLTRO you compensate for this: you get money if you lend money. If banks borrow from the ECB in order to lend it out, they basically get paid. In this way you subsidize banks if they lend money, so it is a clever move.”

Patrick O’Donnell, Aberdeen Asset Management

 "Draghi zet grof geschut in met zijn pakket aan maatregelen. Het nieuwe TLTRO II programma zal waarschijnlijk de meeste impact hebben omdat het de banken waarschijnlijk aanzet om het goedkope geld dat ze krijgen van de ECB ook daadwerkelijk uit te lenen. Het feit dat de ECB non-financial bedrijfsobligaties opkoopt kan interessant uitwerken, maar we weten nog niet precies wat en hoeveel er wordt gekocht. Het risico bestaat dat de ECB minder koopt dan de markt nu verwacht. Draghi had beter niet in kunnen gaan op de vraag hoe ver de rente nog verlaagd kan worden. Hij leek te zeggen dat de ECB de rente niet verder zal drukken, maar dat hebben we al vaker gehoord."

Toby Nangle, Head of Multi-Asset, EMEA bij Columbia Threadneedle Investments

"The ECB’s decision to expand the pace of quantitative easing from €60bn to €80bn per month, to push deposit facility rates 0.1% further into negative territory to -0.4% somewhat exceeded market expectations. Negative interest rates will likely be a drag on European bank profitability, but the new series of TLTROs go some way to offsetting this drag in providing opportunities for exceptionally cheap funding for banks. In fact, in theory, banks could be paid money by the ECB to borrow, although the modalities of the operations are not yet clear. But the most important aspect of the ECB decision looks to have been including non-financial corporate bonds in the list of eligible assets for quantitative easing."

"This decision gives the ECB the potential to become the most significant participant in the €900bn European non-financial corporate bond market. While the ECB actions are unlikely to transform the economic outlook, they are in keeping with the central bank’s ambition to cheapen funding costs for companies that seek to invest, and reduce the incentives to save rather than spend. As such, the positive market reaction looks entirely justified."

How investors reacted to Mario Draghi's latest ECB announcements https://t.co/yoHBfDIYU8 https://t.co/WgNcBP7NUJ

— Bloomberg Business (@business) 11 maart 2016