PMM: SSA premiums fall just as ECB steps in

The volatility that defined the first week of March for SSA issuers meant the paid higher new issue premiums than before — an average NIP of 1.5bp. But the same metric fell to 0.71bp last week, suggesting growing investor comfort that will have been buoyed by the ECB’s decision last week to step up its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme to meet rising government bond yields — and even those numbers were well below last year’s average SSA NIP of 2.6bp.