Euro’s had a choppy start to the day as the markets await the ECB’s monthly meeting – also the last to be chaired by Mario Draghi. A rate cut is widely expected, as is a stimulus package, although the extent of that package is expected to be relatively small.
Amid growing worries of a struggling Eurozone economy, especially in key players like Germany, the focus is above all on trying to stimulate growth. At the moment, strong services performance has helped to counterweight poor industrial performance, but the length of this slump has not helped to abate concerns.
This morning, German inflation came in at 1.4%, representing a small fall year on year. Later this morning, before the ECB’s meeting, we will see Eurozone-wide industrial production figures, expected to still be in the negative, but less so than in the previous period.
Ireland’s Philip Hogan has been appointed as the EU’s new trade commissioner, in a move which could signal difficult negotiations ahead, if the UK gets past the Withdrawal Agreement stage. Hogan has warned of the UK’s ‘huge gap between hope and experience’ in creating its own trade policy’, and was commended on his appointment as a ‘skilled negotiator’ by Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
