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:
* Europe takes a breather from its rally. Germany, France, Italy and Spain all saw material widening in their sovereign swaps last week. Rising uncertainty around both Germany's economic health and Spain and Italy's ability to manage through the crisis without recession-inducing austerity commitments weighed on the continent's outlook. The relative winners this week were Portugal and Ireland. Portuguese and Irish sovereign swaps tightened by 53 bps and 8 bps, respectively.
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Matthew Hedrick
Senior Analyst
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Security Market Program – For the 23rd straight week the ECB's secondary sovereign bond purchasing program, the Securities Market Program (SMP), purchased no sovereign paper for the latest week ended 8/24, to take the total program to €208.5 Billion.
Following President Draghi’s conference call remarks on 8/2 in which he addressed rising yields in the periphery and said that the ECB “may undertake” non-standard measures, the market continues to be disappointed – there has been no buying.
We also think it’s unlikely that we’ll get definitive color on secondary peripheral buying at the ECB’s next meeting on Thursday 9/6, however this is the next immediate catalyst. Instead, we expect Draghi to be on hold with rates and will likely not act (buy) until after there’s clarity from the German Constitutional Court’s decision on the ESM and fiscal compact on 9/12. Improving preliminary PMIs from Europe and the CPI on hold at 2.4% help support this position.
European Financials CDS Monitor – German bank swaps widen while Spanish bank swaps tighten.
Euribor-OIS spread – The Euribor-OIS spread tightened by 4 bps to 22 bps. 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.
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.
