ECB Holds Rates Steady, Reaffirms Asset Purchases Through September ‘Or Beyond’
Published Jan 25, 2018 07:46AM ET
ECB holds interest rates steady and reaffirms outlook on APP
Investing.com – The European Central Bank acted as expected on Thursday by holding interest rates steady.
Specifically, the ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.00%.
Furthermore, the central bank also coincided with forecasts by holding its deposit facility rate steady at -0.40% and leaving its marginal lending rate at 0.25%.
“The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of the net asset purchases,” the statement repeated.
The ECB also reiterated that will hold steady on its asset purchase program, with monthly purchases of €30 billion ($37.2 billion) until “the end of September 2018, or beyond, if necessary, and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim”.
Traders now look ahead to ECB president Mario Draghi’s press conference at 8:30AM ET (13:30GMT) to see if he will offer further clues on the future path of monetary policy for the euro zone.
Markets widely anticipate that the following meeting in March could be the time for the ECB to announce any shifts in its forward guidance.
After the announcement and ahead of Draghi, EUR/USD was trading at 1.2411 from around 1.2406 ahead of the release.
Meanwhile, European stock markets traded mostly higher. The benchmark Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.22%, France's CAC 40 gained 0.52%, Germany's DAX advanced 0.21%, while London’s FTSE 100 traded up 0.18%.
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Written By: Investing.com
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