Markets calmed down, in the knowledge that the central bank would intervene if needed. As they quickly realized the futility of speculating against the central bank in its lender-of-last-resort capacity, no purchases whatsoever were required under the OMT. This policy was successful on all accounts. 1  Christiaan Pattipeilohy et al., “Assessing the effective stance of monetary policy: A factor-based approach”, November 2017.
2  Chart 1: Euro area inflation  Euro area inflation Annual percent change 4  3  2  1  0  -1 12  13  HICP  14  15  16  17  Core inflation (excl food & energy)  Stemming a speculative attack on the integrity of your currency is one thing, controlling inflation is clearly a different ballgame.