The event of the day was the ECB........>

EGB SUMMARY: The event of the day was the ECB Monetary announcement and the

press conference that followed. The ECB decided to scale back its purchase

programme to E30bln per month beginning in January. The ECB announcement created

pushed EGB markets higher with the 10Y Dec-17 Bund contract rose 48 ticks. prior

to the ECB, the Bund-Bonos spread had collapsed 6bp on hopes of elections.

- There have been conflicting reports when, and if, the Catalan President

Puigdemont will give a speech today. The most recent report from Reuters was

that Puigdemont plans to speak at 1500GMT. The Bund-Bonos spread is tighter by

5.3bp and is currently trading 111.2bp.

- In terms of flows, there were reports of buyers of Bunds and Bonos and that

Italian mutual funds were selling short-dated BTPs in the morning but had since

been buying 5 and 10Y paper later in the day. The BTP market has been trading

very well on Thursday. Many thought Draghi opened the gate to carry trades. 

- Interesting comments on the ECB: corporates will still be heavy, Nordea think

that this could make up E6-7bln of the E30bln total. Others pointed to the lack

of unanimity on keeping the programme open-ended.