Almost exactly six years to the day since the UK launched quantitative easing, the European Central Bank will today start buying bonds in its own version of what was once called extraordinary monetary policy.

The government bond markets have also been helped by impending European QE, pushing some fixed income yields further into negative territory. Longer maturing bonds are starting to go negative with some European governments selling five year bonds at negative coupon rates.

Bond yields might remain more depressed or go further into negative territory in the next few months as the European version of QE fails to follow the pattern of its forerunners.

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