For all those curious what the ECB's "anti-spread tool", meant to bring soaring Italian yields tighter in a time of rising rates and QT even as Europe scrambles to offset record inflation by tightening financial conditions (as discussed most recently in "The ECB Has A Huge Dilemma: Price Stability Or Bail Out Nations"), we got a small update earlier today when ECB President Christine Lagarde said that the central bank will activate one part of the bond-purchasing firepower it’s earmarked as "a first line of defense" against a possible debt-market crisis this coming Friday... which just "coincidentally" happens to be ... (full story)