The ECB announced full-blown quantitative easing (QE) on 22 January, by confirming that it would inject up to €1 trillion into the eurozone economy...

The ECB announced full-blown quantitative easing (QE) on 22 January, by confirming that it would inject up to €1 trillion into the eurozone economy through the purchase of eurozone government and corporate bonds. The programme will run at the rate of €60bn a month (including the existing ABS and covered bond programmes) until the end of September 2016 or until there is sustained improvement in inflation and inflation expectations. The ECB has also improved the terms of its longer-term refinancing operations (cheap loans for banks), cutting the interest rate at which they are offered. The market's reaction so far has not been significant, as the ECB?s move had been anticipated widely. It is nonetheless pleasing that the ECB exceeded expectations as government bond purchases alone are likely to amount to around €40-45bn a month or equivalent to around €750bn over an eighteen-month period (the market had expected sovereign bond purchases in the order of €500bn as part of the programme)...continued: (VIEW LINK)