EZ Monetary Policy Statement

The Fed stayed put and signaled no rush in reducing rates, while the ECB cut rates and said more cuts are coming. Both as expected. The central bank meetings at the major central banks did not surprise this week. The Fed stayed put while the ECB cut rates by 25bps. In terms of forward guidance, the Fed saw no rush in moving rates at their next meetings. The ECB, on other hand signalled more cuts are coming, most likely another 25bps at the next two meetings. The difference in central bank actions and outlook is easily explainable by ...

ECB President Christine Lagarde explains the Governing Council's monetary policy decisions and will answer questions from journalists at the Governing Council press conference to be held on 30 January 2025 at 14:45 CET in Frankfurt am Main.

The European Central Bank is set to lower interest rates for a fifth meeting as inflation that’s nearing the 2% target lets officials further loosen the shackles on the economy. Lizzy Burden reports from Frankfurt ahead of today's decision. (Source: Bloomberg)

This Thursday’s ECB decision will almost certainly be a 25bp rate cut. Governing Council members have given very strong hints that rates would be lowered again in their latest comments, most recently in Davos. Our baseline view is that President Christine Lagarde will broadly repeat December’s communication and her Davos forward guidance. That includes reiterating that rates wil remain in restrictive territory and while not pre-committing to a specific easing path, sticky December inflation should not prevent the policy message from ...

The ECB is widely expected to cut the deposit rate 25 bps to 2.75% at the end of January, the first of four like-sized cuts forecasted this year (spaced out evenly but may be tightened up to the first half of the year). And it is not politically motivated. The central bank already slashed rates 100 bps last year, and was leaning even more dovish in December. The phrase about keeping rates “restrictive for as long as necessary” was dropped, and a handful of policymakers initially pushed for a 50 bp cut before eventually supporting the ...

Europe’s central banks are taking a determined dovish turn to aid economies bracing for more disruption from Donald Trump’s second stint in the White House. Decisions by policymakers in Frankfurt and Bern on Thursday to cut interest rates left little doubt over the prospect of possible future easing to cushion the effect of unknowns ranging from trade tensions to geopolitically stoked currency volatility. Most drastic was the Swiss National Bank’s surprise half-point reduction to 0.5%, further undoing constriction to reach a level ...