span>span>Thursday 27th October /span>span>2022/span>span> - 13:45 (BST)/span>/span>
The European Central Bank (ECB) struck a hawkish tone following the conclusion of its latest 2 day meeting in Frankfurt earlier today. Policymakers voted to increase the EU deposit facility by 75 bps to reach a decade-high level of 1.5%.
Euro demand was subdued following the widely anticipated move - the second-straight 75 basis-point hike in a bid to curtail recent runaway inflation that accelerated 9.9% over September alone. EUR/USD remained above parity whilst GBP/EUR traded around €1.15 ahead of the afternoon session.
Along with pushing key interest rates to their highest levels since January 2009, policymakers added that the bank will begin to take initial steps in reducing its €8.8 trillion balance sheet. The figure has been growing rapidly following years of debt purchases and ultra-cheap loans extended to EU banks.
The also remained vague on future rate moves, conceding further increases would be likely but are dependent on incoming data and will be assessed on a meeting-by-meeting basis.
With gas prices falling due to increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies outside of Russia, there is renewed optimism that winter energy consumption can now be met within the EU. This should also help reduce wider inflationary pressures as production costs fall.
Attentions now turn to preliminary estimates for German Q3 GDP performance tomorrow morning, with yearly growth of 0.8% anticipated. Europe’s biggest economy saw business activity fall faster than expected during August and September which analysts fear could dent the reading.
