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Growing concern about the impact of trade tensions on the economic outlook, another spike in Italian borrowing costs, fraught Brexit talks and volatility in world markets make for a colorful backdrop to Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting.
The ECB is expected to repeat that its 2.6 trillion euro ($3.0 trillion) bond-buying scheme is likely to end at the close of the year, with bond markets hoping for details on how reinvestments from maturing bonds will be channeled next year.
Here are some key questions that may come up.
1. How worried is the ECB about growing risks to the growth outlook?
Economists were unanimous in a recent Reuters poll that the ECB will end its bond-buying stimulus by year-end, with a low likelihood of an extension in the face of political and trade worries.
But growing concern about the economic outlook may be hard to ignore as trade wars take a toll. This month, the International Monetary Fund cut its world economic growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019, and Europe’s biggest economy Germany lowered its growth projections.
Minutes of the ECB’s September meeting showed that at least some policymakers debated whether to downgrade their growth risk assessment, which they described as “broadly balanced”.
“Global downside risks, and the possibility of further increases in those risks from here which could formally tip the balance toward downside risks in the statement, are the main things to watch,” said Pictet Wealth Management strategist Frederik Ducrozet.