On Thursday, July 17, the European Central Bank (ECB) published an indicative calendar for the meetings of the Governing Council and for reserve maintenance periods in 2015.
The Governing Council decided this month that meetings dedicated to monetary policy will be held every six weeks instead of once a month, starting in January 2015. Thus, the maintenance periods will be extended to about six weeks as well. The new calendar aligns the start of maintenance periods with possible implementation of monetary policy decisions.
Moreover, taking this schedule into account, the 12th reserve maintenance period of 2014 will be extended by 14 days to end on January 27, 2015.
ECB monetary operations
On Monday, July 14, the ECB announced its weekly main refinancing operation (MRO). The auction was conducted on Tuesday, July 15, and attracted bids from euro area eligible counterparties of €99.91 billion, €5.76 billion higher than the bid amount of the previous week. The amount was allotted in full at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing MRO rate of 0.15 per cent, in accordance with current ECB policy. On Wednesday, July 16, the ECB conducted a seven-day US dollar funding operation through collateralised lending in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve. This operation attracted one bid of $0.08 billion, which was allotted in full at a fixed rate of 0.59 per cent.
Domestic Treasury bill market
In the domestic primary market for Treasury bills, the Treasury invited tenders for 91-day bills maturing on October 17. Bids of €28 million were submitted, with the Treasury accepting €12 million. Since €17.60 million worth of bills matured during the week, the outstanding balance of Treasury bills decreased by €5.60 million, to stand at €416.57 million.
The yield from the 91-day bill auction was 0.296 per cent, i.e. 0.70 basis point lower than on bills with a similar tenor issued on July 11, representing a bid price of 99.9252 per 100 nominal.
During the week under review, there was no trading on the Malta Stock Exchange.
Today, the Treasury will invite tenders for 91-day bills and 182-day bills maturing on October 24, 2014, and January 23, 2015, respectively.