Christine Lagarde chaired her first monetary policy meeting yesterday, announcing that interest rates would be held at their all-time low rate of zero, and hinted at further cuts, saying ‘The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2%…’
Likewise, it was confirmed that the Bank will go forwards with the stimulus programme set up by Mario Draghi, and would only expect to end it ‘shortly before’ interest rates are raised.
Today, much focus will be on the UK following the General Election, and the euro is down against the pound as the latter has strengthened on a Conservative majority. However, we will also have a number of European data releases, including Italian industrial figures and Spanish inflation rates, as well as some keynote speeches from Luis de Guindos.
