Option Millionaires

[uranium-pinto-beans]

Major bond markets were spun lower on a Reuters report that European Central Bank's Ewald Nowotny said the deposit rate could be lifted to -0.2% from -0.4% and end the bond buying program by year-end. The German bund yield rose to 0.53% from 0.495%. While its too early to tell when rates will rise, Nowotny added, he would have no problem with raising the deposit rate as a first step. So even if a hike in the key repo rate may take longer to rise Nowotny seems to be backing a move away from the negative deposit rate, which currently stands at -0.40%. The deposit rate no longer acts as the cut off point for bond purchases under the quantitative-easing (QE) program, but a lift in the deposit rate would clearly have a signalling effect as the end to the easing cycle, likely even more so than the now widely expected phasing out of QE.