Doing a bit of a catch-up on the comments from European Central Bank executive board member and chief economist Peter Praet:

Ryan had the headlines overnight: ECB's Praet: Commodity prices raise downside risk to inflation

And Mike with a bit more: EURUSD gives up on 1.1450 as ECB Praet provides easing jitters

More via Bloomberg:

  • ECB is ready to expand or extend its quantitative-easing program if needed as a slump in commodity prices and risks to global economic growth threaten its inflation goal
  • "Developments in the world economy and in commodity markets have increased the downside risk of achieving the sustainable inflation path toward 2 percent ... There should be no ambiguity on the willingness and ability of the Governing Council to act if needed."

Says Nick Kounis, an economist at ABN Amro Bank NV in Amsterdam:

"Praet's remarks significantly increase the chances that the ECB will step up or extend QE as soon as next month's meeting ... It could communicate that QE will be completely open-ended, dropping the reference to September 2016. Alternatively, it could increase the size of the monthly purchases."

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Oh ... which reminds me ... we've got a speech coming up from BOJ Governor Kuroada (at 2300GMT), in which he'll be talking about Japan's inflation target.

I reckon this comment from Praet:

"Developments in the world economy and in commodity markets have increased the downside risk of achieving the sustainable inflation path toward 2 percent ... There should be no ambiguity on the willingness and ability of the Governing Council to act if needed."

Could be repeated nearly unchanged by Kuroda:

"Developments in the world economy and in commodity markets have increased the downside risk of achieving the sustainable inflation path toward 2 percent ... There should be no ambiguity on the willingness and ability of the Governing Council BOJ to act if needed."

Spot the hipster.