This is the financial equivalent of a circular firing squad. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
Not that long ago we joked that the ECB’s cunning “market fragmentation” plan – which became critical after Italian bonds crashed when markets realized that QT is not, in fact, QE and without the ECB backstopping worthless European paper said paper would trade down to its “fair value” – would consist of fighting inflation on even days with higher rates and no QE, and then fighting bond market fragmentation and soaring Italian yields on odd days with NIRP and QE.
It turns out we were not that far off, because instead of splitting QE and QT into odd and even days, the ECB will pursue bond buying vs selling broken down by geography. Reuters reports that the European Central Bank will buy bonds from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece with some of the proceeds it receives from maturing German, French and Dutch debt in a bid to cap spreads between their borrowing costs.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 