The scale of current oil price developments is also comparable to its predecessors in real terms and after taking into account exchange rates -with the possible exception of the period from 1998 to 2000, when the depreciation of the euro amplified the dollar increase in energy prices.
This signals the next phase in the bond purchase program. The initial phase in which the Bank built up its stock of bond holdings is often referred to as ‘quantitative easing’, or QE for short. That phase ended in February this year. We have now entered the phase known as ‘quantitative tightening’, or QT.