Money-market indicators that traditionally warned of stresses in the financial system are being muffled by a deluge of central bank cash as the euro-region crisis focuses on Greece's future in the currency bloc and the meltdown of Spanish lenders.

The three-month cross-currency basis swap, the rate banks pay to convert euro interest payments into dollars, was 51.8 basis points below the euro interbank offered rate at 12:12 p.m. in London, from minus 50.3 basis points on June 15. The swap stayed in a range of 41.5 to 59.1 basis points below the benchmark in the past three months, even as an index of bank- bond risk surged 52 percent.

Concern that Greece's election result would hasten the country's exit from the euro and the deepening banking woes in Spain failed to clog up the plumbing of Europe's financial markets. That's because since December, banks that can't access money markets have been able to get as much cash as they need through the European Central Bank's 1 trillion-euro ($1.3 trillion) longer-term refinancing operations.

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