First of all the European Central Bank (ECB) wasn’t going to give anyone cheap money any more. Then it wasn’t going to exchange junk bonds for Euros. And it didn’t see how the IMF could get involved. Then it was happy for the IMF to get involved. Then it would do the junk-euros swap – but only for Greece. Then it would for everyone who turned up looking hungry. Now it’s stopped doing any of that. For a bit.

So taken is the Eurozone with its new-found (and ridiculous) ‘wolfpack’ analogy for what those evil markets are doing to it, it avoids every potential torpedo. The result is circular – in that traders who are on board the ECB ship wind up precisely where they started: devoid of any confidence in the Eurozone’s ability to sort out the problem.

“Central banks are buying less Spain and Italy,” a credit finance head said earlier today, “and that might mean they think that the markets in these countries have stabilised enough, so they don’t have to intervene”. It might also mean the ECB is keeping its powder dry ready for when confidence evaporates entirely. Or that Trichet has no more confidence in those Latin countries than the dealers. Or that nobody knows any more which way is up. Or all three. It’s the way things tend to feel when you’re out there stabilising at the sharp end.

Well, yesterday Bloomberg noted that ‘bonds have since stabilised across the euro region’….but today the same site said that ‘Insurers are leading the first monthly decline for corporate bonds since December on speculation they face losses on sovereign debt….’. I’d call that assumption rather than speculation, but there’s an interesting tidbit today too from CreditSights, one of the market’s biggest auditors.

CS records that between them, Europe’s insurance megaliths hold more than 95 billion euros of bonds issued by countries servicing record budget deficits. That’s a lot of money – and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘holding folding’.

Earlier Slog postings have also been banging on about the number of insurance/assurance groups heavily into the commercial property bubble sorry, sector.

It’d be nice if these very big companies were into something else – like gold for example, which as I write is spiking up to $1245. It’s be nice if they were into anything else other than toxic bonds and soon-to-be worthless property assets.

Whichever way you look at it, the actions of Eurozone financial institutions are inspiring little beyond hyper-anxiety right now. I usually find that blind panic has this effect on bystanders.