Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna today (Thursday) announced plans to roadshow its covered bond programme at the end of the month, but no other mandates hit the screens despite a market rally fuelled by a surprise non-tapering move by the Federal Reserve.

The Italian bank has mandated Citi, Mediobanca, RBS, Société Générale and UBS in connection with a roadshow of a new obbligazioni bancarie garantite (OBG) programme, which is due to start on 25 September. The programme is expected to be rated Baa2 by Moody’s.

Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna (BPER) has yet to issue a benchmark covered bond in the public markets, although it has launched OBGs that it retained. Officials at the bank were not available for comment by the time of publication.

No other primary market related announcement had hit the screens by the time of publication, although markets were very much in risk-on mode after, contrary to expectations, the Federal Reserve yesterday (Wednesday) did not announce a tapering of its asset purchase programme, which will instead carry on unchanged. It also said that an accommodative monetary policy will be maintained for some time after the end of the quantitative easing programme.

“Seeing as the market was already pricing in the taper, yesterday’s announcement led to a very strong rally of mostly everything,” said a credit strategist this morning.

Some syndicate bankers said that market conditions were conducive for issuance, especially in the form of higher beta, peripheral and longer dated supply. One said that the market reaction to the Federal Reserve decision represented a chance for second and third tier peripheral covered bond issuers to approach the market given outperformance potential in these segments of the market.

However, the morning session was fairly muted in covered bonds and SSAs, said another syndicate official, who noted that euro buyers had reacted more cautiously to the Federal Reserve announcement than US dollar buyers.

“Today is a bit uncertain,” she said. “There was a reaction in the morning but that reverted a bit, although overall things are more positive than negative.”

Although the market is in good shape, market participants are digesting the Federal Reserve’s decision and also awaiting the outcome of German parliamentary elections on Sunday, said syndicate officials, with next week more likely to bring a resumption of benchmark covered bond supply.

“I don’t have any concrete projects but the market is in good shape for deals next week,” said one.