Here comes the ECB ...
- The European Central Bank will announce its latest monetary policy decisions at 12:45 p.m. BST (7:45 a.m. ET).
- The meeting is expected to be uneventful, with policy almost entirely certain to be unchanged.
- While the meeting should be fairly straightforward, trade tensions could complicate matters.
LONDON - The European Central Bank will announce its latest monetary policy decisions after the July meeting of its governing council, the final meeting before its summer break.
The meeting is expected to be uneventful, with policy almost entirely certain to be unchanged. Future guidance is also likely to stay the same as the central bank winds down for the summer.
That will mean a base deposit rate of -0.4%, and a quantitative easing program of €30 billion per month - a figure that will be reduced to €15 billion per month from September as the bank winds down its bond buying. The ECB will cease purchasing bonds from the end of 2018.
Policy decisions will be announced at 12:45 p.m. BST (7:45 a.m. ET), while ECB President Mario Draghi will speak to the media 45 minutes later.
While the meeting should be fairly straightforward, trade tensions could complicate matters, although Wednesday's tacit agreement between President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker may remove trade from the bank's thoughts.
"As long as the trade tensions do not escalate into an outright trade war, we see no reason for the ECB to change its June guidance," Berenberg economist Florian Hense said in a note to clients earlier this week.
This post will be updated following the announcement of the ECB's decision.