Swedish crown, bond yields fall after Riksbank expands QE
The Swedish crown and 10-year government bond yields dropped to two-month lows on Wednesday after Sweden's central bank expanded its asset purchase program and vowed to intervene in the currency market if an upturn in inflation is threatened.
The Riksbank held its benchmark repo rate unchanged at -0.35 percent, as expected, and said it would expand its bond buying program by 65 billion Swedish crowns ($7.65 billion) to a total of 200 billion crowns.
The crown fell to 9.4360 per euro, down 0.4 percent on the day, before recovering to trade at 9.3950, broadly unchanged on the day.
The dollar rose to around 8.5434 crowns, up 0.2 percent on the day.
Swedish 10-year bond yields fell to a two-month low of 0.51 percent, down 13 basis points on the day, from 0.59 percent before the decision.
Swedish blue-chip stocks turned higher after the decision, before steadying to trade up 0.6 percent, roughly where they had been.
A large majority of analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast the central bank would keep its record low repo rate unchanged after consumer prices rose in September for the first time in four months.
The Riksbank has cut rates three times this year to boost prices, most recently in July when the central bank also expanded its bond buying scheme to 135 billion Swedish crowns.
There's been a slew of comforting words from global central bankers in recent days.
Last Thursday, ECB (European Central Bank) President Mario Draghi spoke of a negative deposit rate and left investors contemplating a ramping up of its 1 trillion euro quantitative easing program when it meets again in December.
Within 24 hours, the Chinese central bank had cut its main benchmark rate for the sixth time since last November. By Sunday, both Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, and Vice Chairman Fritz Zurbruegg, from the Swiss National Bank, were both penning dovish messages in their country's national newspapers.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the ECB's Executive Board member Benoit Coeure spoke about more easing by the central bank during a trip to Mexico. He said the tools that the ECB could use would depend on the shocks it sees to liquidity or interest rates.