MW: ECB settled 8.6 bln euros in bond buys last week
By William L. Watts
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- The European Central Bank on Monday said it settled government bond purchases totaling 8.6 billion euros ($11.5 billion) last week as the euro-zone debt crisis intensified. The ECB settled purchases totaling 8 billion euros the previous week. Traders said the ECB last week continued to intervene to buy Italian and Spanish government bonds as yields on Italian paper topped 7%. The ECB doesn't provide a breakdown by country of its bond purchases. The central bank "sterilizes" its bond purchases by draining an equivalent amount of liquidity from the financial system each week. The bank has bought a total of 203.5 billion euros of bonds since the Securities Market Program was launched in 2010.
