Market information Friday September 18th 2015

Yesterday, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) left its benchmark interest rate unchanged. However, the Fed does not exclude the possibility of a tightening policy later this year, but said that it first wants to see “further improvement in the labour market” and be “reasonably confident” in increasing inflation. It expects economic growth in the US to be 2.1% in 2015, compared to 2.4% in 2014.

On Wednesday, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced it will increase transparency in crisis situations. It will now allow national central banks to disclose information on Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) when they provide liquidity to temporarily troubled banks. Also it will start publishing data on eurozone countries’ TARGET balances. This will give insight in the net claims and liabilities amongst eurozone members on the common payment platform.

Staalbankiers, a small Dutch bank, incurred substantial losses due to fluctuations in the value of the Swiss Franc. A large part (37%) of the bank’s mortgage portfolio is denominated in Swiss Francs. Since the Swiss Franc is no longer pegged to the Euro, the EUR/CHF exchange rate dropped from 1.20 in January 2015 to 1.10 today. Staalbankiers transferred their portfolio to parent company Achmea and will continue as a smaller asset manager.

The 6M Euribor remained unchanged at 0.04%. The 10Y Swap decreased by 8 basis points to 1.02%.

In the attachment below, today’s market data on money and capital market rates as well as other rates are presented. For more history of these rates or other rates feel free to ask: update@zanders.eu.