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There were no data releases from Eurozone yesterday. The Bundesbank President repeated that the ECB’s policy normalization should start soon, adding again that expectations for a rate hike around the middle of next year are “not unrealistic”. No real surprise there, although there seems a slight delay in the road map towards a rate hike, after Praet recently seemed to hint that he is comfortable with market expectations for a move “next spring”. If mega-hawk Weidmann is aiming more for the middle of next year, there doesn’t seem to be too much of a hurry, even if the general road map for the phasing out of policy measures remains intact, despite trade war jitters and market turbulences.

In what looks like a move to ensure the smooth running of net asset purchases through the final stretch of QE, the Bundesbank asked the ECB to include 7 regional German agencies to the list of institutions whose debt is eligible for purchases under the QE program. There have been several warnings that the ECB would run out of eligble assets and the latest move will go some way to ensure that the program runs smoothly through to the end of the year, when we expect net asset purchases to be phased out.

 

There will be no major data releases both from Eurozone and USA tomorrow so we can expect less volatile session.