Purchases under the European Central Bank’s covered bond and ABS purchase programmes will be suspended on Monday for two weeks, with the ECB citing low liquidity and the avoidance of market distortions.

The following statement was included on the open market operations page of the ECB website where cumulative totals for CBPP3 and ABSPP are published:

“The Eurosystem will temporarily pause ABSPP and CBPP3 purchases between 22 December 2014 and 2 January 2015, inclusive, in anticipation of lower market liquidity during this period and in order to reduce possible market distortions. Purchases will resume on 5 January 2015.”

Although purchases under CBPP1 and CBPP2 slowed over the holiday period, there were no publicly announced shutdowns. For example, on the corresponding period for CBPP2 in 2011/2012, when the ECB was reporting increases on a daily basis, it recorded no increases to the programme’s total on only four days, although it did not report a figure on 26 December and also Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day all fell on weekend days.