The government hopes that the 10-year issue and another long-term offering later this year will make it eligible for help from the ECB's still-untested program of bond purchases, known as Outright Monetary Transactions, which would in turn help push its borrowing costs lower. "If there is some clarification forthcoming from the ECB as to whether Ireland has reached the bar required to qualify for OMT, then Ireland should be home and hosed on exiting the bailout program this year," said Lorcan Roche Kelly, chief European strategist at research firm TrendMacro.

TREND MACRO, Lorcan Roche Kelly: "Reports on depositors being in the firing line have been circulating for weeks, and so it is not a surprise that the bail-in has been announced. However, the risks -- beyond upsetting Cypriot depositors -- are unknown. The rather bold assumption on the part of the Europeans is that this will have little effect. They may well be right. There have been rumors of a depositor bail-in for weeks and there have been no signs of flight. The ECB has promised to back-stop any disruption -- that is a promise that we can rely on.

The European Central Bank Thursday...announced that if Cyprus didn't finally iron out a deal with international creditors by Monday, then the ECB would cut off emergency funding to the country's banks.

"This is a hard deadline of Monday evening on the continued existence of the Cypriot banking system as we know it," said Lorcan Roche Kelly, chief Europe strategist at research firm Trend Macro in Ireland. "While it was never likely that it would survive intact, the ECB has this morning forced the issue."

This is all being played out against the threat of ELA being cut from Monday. ...It's worth noting that quite a few of the people we talked to this morning didn't see it that way and expected an eventual fudge. But others we respect, such as Lorcan Roche Kelly at Trend Macro, see this as a very hard line -- why else would the ECB have mentioned Monday, 25 March 2013 in their release.

Analyst Lorcan Roche Kelly, of Trend Macrolytics, said Mr Dijsselbloem's comments risked discouraging investment in Europe.

''Any reason anyone should leave more than EUR 100,000 in a euro area bank after [his] comments? Any at all?'' he tweeted.

In a note put out yesterday, Lorcan Roche Kelly of Trend Macrolytics has a slightly contrarian take on what the ECB should do tomorrow. First of all, he does think there will be a rate cut, whereas previously he was skeptical.

BUT, he argues that a rate cut isn't the right tool for the job, and won't accomplish anything because of how broken everything is. Instead, the ECB needs to open up new channels to extend credit to Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, especially in the periphery where traditional monetary policy channels are impaired.

Now we come to what happened at last week's ECB announcement and presser. Most of the subsequent commentary focused on the main refinancing rate cut, the hint of a negative deposit rate, and the commitment to spur lending to small- and medium-sized companies.

But our pal Lorcan Roche Kelly of TrendMacro emphasised something different in his latest note:

Lorcan Roche Kelly, chief Europe strategist at TrendMacro, a US fund advisory firm, said the euro-area GDP numbers were at odds with ECB lending data, which showed continuing reductions in credit to small and medium- sized companies.

Without increasing credit to this critical sector, any return to vigorous growth was nearly impossible.

Now that Bernanke has tapered twice in succession and in equal $10 billion increments, it could reduce Yellen's flexibility if circumstances change, warns Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics.

"Bernanke has handed Yellen a fait accompli, an established policy trend that will be difficult for her to contradict," he told clients.

"To have only a 6% correction is a great sign of strength," says Donald Luskin, chief investment officer at TrendMacro. "It is telling us that U.S. stocks might have been tired but didn't want to go down. They just took a little nap."

..."The economy is not sprinting, but it's finally back on its feet," Luskin says.