Market information

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Yesterday, the Statistics Netherlands bureau announced that the Dutch are very pessimistic about their financial situation in 2012. This is in contrast with consumer confidence figures in Germany and the USA published earlier this week. Especially the Dutch willingness to buy has decreased, which is unfavorable for household consumption.

Interest rates on Spanish government bonds with a maturity of three and six months have decreased significantly. The effective interest rate on the three months bonds, issued yesterday by the Spanish government, dropped to 1.735%. This is a big difference compared to the 5.1110% in the previous auction, one month ago. This success is thanks to the banks who bought more loans than was estimated. It is suspected that banks bought more because of the new liquidity facility of the European Central Bank, which makes it possible for banks to borrow unlimited money with a term of three years.

Rating agency Fitch warns France for a downgrade of its AAA status. Fitch stated that France has a 50% chance that within one to two years it will lose its triple A status. A loss in the credit status of France or Germany would directly affect the credit status of the European emergency fund.

Investors seem to have confidence in the liquidity operation of the European Central Bank. The ECB will later today auction the three-year bonds. This confidence resulted in gains on the stock markets yesterday. The Dow Jones index gained 2.9% and the S & P 500 closed at a profit of 3%. In Europe, stock markets closed positively after the news that Spain could easily sell € 5.6 billion in Treasury bills at relatively low interest rates. The AEX ended nearly 3% higher. The Nikkei in Tokyo closed 1.5% higher.

The 6M Euribor remained unchanged at 1.67%. The 10Y Swap increased by 5 basis points to 2.52%.

In the attachment below, today’s market data on money and capital market rates as well as other rates are presented. For more history of these rates or other rates feel free to ask: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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