ECB ‘walking tightrope’ on QE

The European Central Bank’s decision last week to keep buying bonds through to September 2018 — albeit at a depleted rate from January — should put a ceiling over Spanish government bond yields, even if the Catalan independence saga rolls on, said an investor. But the ECB is walking a “tightrope” by pushing back monetary policy normalisation to 2019 at the earliest, he added.