To my way of think, yes.
The market is fixated on the maturity of the ECB’s 1 year refi operations on Thursday when EUR 442 in funding will have to be replaced. The ECB had phased out its long-term refi operations over the last several months in an effort to wean European banks off of central bank life support. When the sovereign debt crisis hit its crescendo in May, the ECB reinstituted 3-month fixed rate refis with full allotment, meaning banks could borrow as much as they like.
So the net effect is that a one-year lending facility is being replaced with a three-month lending facility. Sounds like a tempest in a teapot, but that’s what forex markets thrive on…
