Below are key European banking risk monitors, which are included as part of Josh Steiner and the Financial team's "Monday Morning Risk Monitor". If you'd like to receive the work of the Financials team or request a trial please email .
Key Takeaways:
* Greece's debt swap was largely in line with expectations last week; on a week-over-week basis, we saw relatively little movement in several key risk indicators. Most of the series were essentially unchanged or continued on their pre-swap trajectories. European and US interbank risk receded further last week with the Euribor-OIS shrinking 4 bps week over week, while the TED spread shrank 2 bps. This is less of a catalyst for further upside now that both of these measures have largely renormalized.
Euribor-OIS spread – The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States. Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal. By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending. Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk. The Euribor-OIS spread tightened by 4 bps to 54 bps.
ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility – The ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility measures banks’ overnight deposits with the ECB. Taken in conjunction with excess reserves, the ECB deposit facility measures excess liquidity in the Euro banking system. An increase in this metric shows that banks are borrowing from the ECB. In other words, the deposit facility measures one element of the ECB response to the crisis.
European Financials CDS Monitor – Bank swaps were wider in Europe last week for 31 of the 40 reference entities. The average widening was 2.6% and the median widening was 2.4%.
Security Market Program – The ECB's secondary sovereign bond purchasing program bought €27 Million sovereign paper in the week ended 3/9, after three straight weeks of no purchases. The bank bought a mere €183 Million in the first two weeks of February, versus €2.2 BILLION in the week ended 1/20 and €3.8 BILLION in the week 1/12. When questioned in last week’s ECB press conference on the lack of buying over the last 3 weeks, Draghi only answered that the SMP is a non-standard measure that is “neither eternal nor infinite.” Clearly, with the some €1 Trillion injection of liquidity across the LTROs, the Bank is paring back buying and watching the results of sovereign bond auctions. The trend in 2012 continues to be banks issuing debt at lower yields compared to previous auctions. We do, however, continue to wonder exactly who is meeting this demand for PIIGS paper.
Matthew Hedrick
Senior Analyst
