A preview of the minutes of the European Central Bank January meeting, due Thursday 22 February 2018
- The report on the meeting will be published at 1230 GMT
Previews via
Société Générale:
the ECB accounts will likely be a non-event, in contrast with the latest publication in January when market participants pushed forward expectations of the first rate hike.
- Indeed, the communication has been tightened up since then
RBC:
Normally not that revealing, the last set of ECB meeting accounts surprised markets by signalling that the ECB could change its forward guidance 'in coming months'.
- At his press conference after the last meeting, President Draghi sought to dampen expectations of imminent changes to the language saying that all that was agreed was to have discussions about discussions.
- However, as we said at the time, that change in emphasis indicated by the minutes reflected the pressure for change from within the Governing Council and we expect the forward guidance to evolve in coming months.
Two things will, however, be worth watching for in the latest set of meeting accounts
- 1) whether there was any discussion of what happens to QE after September (as we noted at the time (see here) Draghi was at pains to keep all options for what happens to purchases after the planned September expiry on the table and it will be interesting to see if this was prompted by discussions amongst the GovCo)
- and 2) whether there was any discussion on retaining 'well after' in the current language on policy sequencing.
Capital Economics:
- all eyes will be on the account of the ECB's February meeting, which may give hints as to when the Bank will change its forward guidance.
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Bolding mine .... but never as bold as this chap
