The European Central Bank said today it had bought very few government bonds last week, a sign that a key euro zone financial market is stabilising.
The ECB purchased just €9m, continuing a downward trend since its controversial programme aimed at supporting financial markets began in May.
Bond purchases the week before amounted to €81m, which was already down sharply from €176m the week before that.
When the ECB began its Securities Markets Programme, it bought more than €26 billion worth of bonds in the first two weeks, mainly those issued by Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.
The ECB offsets such public bond purchases by taking in an equal amount of one-week deposits from commercial banks so the operations do not increase the amount of money in circulation, which could fuel inflation.
