By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank Governing Council’s monetary policy meeting on Thursday was more or less exactly as predicted by us in this space on Tuesday: uneventful, devoid of surprises, with the need for policy to stay restrictive reconfirmed and talk of rate cuts dismissed as premature.
25 January 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – We have a hard time imagining surprises emerging from this week’s European Central Bank Governing Council meeting, the stage having been so well set in the runup to the occasion.
23 January 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – It may well be that the European Central Bank will cut rates by the summer. We see this as being only just shy of a given, and that depends very little on the wiggle room in the words ‘by the summer’.
17 January 2024
Heads up to clients - this is a piece that we regularly feature and update on our website, summarising all recent ECB speak. We updated it today. You can view it at this static link. https://www.econostream-media.com/theysaidit.html
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The following is an overview of recent comments made by European Central Bank Governing Council members. We include only comments made since the Governing Council meeting of 14 December, but earlier comments can still be seen in versions up to that of 08 December.
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde performed much as expected on Thursday at the press conference following the Governing Council’s monetary policy meeting, acknowledging progress and not slamming any doors shut as she tempered her previous almost indignant rejection of early rate cuts and focused instead on the need to collect more data.
14 December 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – We see the key outcome of this week’s European Central Bank Governing Council meeting as a distinct but carefully measured and limited distancing from the hawkish tone of six weeks previously.
12 December 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – After kicking the QT can down the road at the European Central Bank Governing Council’s meeting in Athens at the end of October, ECB President Christine Lagarde could finally be ready to broach the subject at the next such gathering one week from today.
7 December 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Barring a dramatic event, one should not expect rhetorical about-faces from a central banker with well-known views; European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel came about as close to that on Tuesday as it gets.
6 December 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – There is no currently apparent need for the European Central Bank to ease monetary policy in the first half of next year, making discussion of rate cuts premature, but a change in the situation could lead to another outcome, ECB Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks said Wednesday.
6 December 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – It’s about time – that was our first thought on reading European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel’s latest contribution to the public discussion of the monetary policy outlook, in which she confessed to having come around to a less hawkish take on matters.
5 December 2023
By David Barwick – VIENNA (Econostream) – No one should think that monetary policy tightening by the European Central Bank has already reached an end, Governing Council member Robert Holzmann said Thursday.
17 November 2023
By David Barwick – VIENNA (Econostream) – The European Central Bank Governing Council is unlikely to reach any decisions this year pertaining to the pace of its quantitative tightening, inasmuch as that discussion cannot take place independently of the discussion of its operational framework, Council member Robert Holzmann said Monday.
6 November 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Econostream has updated our hawk-dove ranking to take into account the latest change in the composition of the European Central Bank Governing Council, and has also made a few tweaks to other rankings.
3 November 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – One might wonder what the European Central Bank Governing Council discussed at its latest monetary policy meeting, given the absence of any real decision and the evident reluctance of authorities to broach new topics for which this might have been a sensible occasion.
26 October 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – To describe the outcome of this week’s European Central Bank Governing Council meeting as a pause might inadequately capture the firmness with which policymakers are actually on hold at the moment, meaning that a rate move is virtually excluded.
24 October 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – With the European Central Bank Governing Council so clearly intending to abstain from a rate hike at its monetary policy meeting in Athens next week, one might wonder how authorities will fill the void left by this non-decision, given also the absence of updated macroeconomic projections to chew over.
18 October 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank should decide by the end of this year to accelerate the termination of investments under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP), according to ECB Governing Council member Gaston Reinesch.
12 October 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank Governing Council will devote part of its next meetings to discussing an end to the reinvestment of assets purchased under the ECB’s pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP), Council member Robert Holzmann said Monday.
3 October 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank must have realised when it chose to hike rates on 14 September that a move of such dubious necessity at this stage of the tightening cycle would inevitably give rise to a need for interviews like that of Vice President Luis de Guindos on Monday.
2 October 2023
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch has said that high uncertainty made it very unclear whether the ECB’s rate hike last week would be the final one in the current tightening cycle.
20 September 2023