A subtle hint that perhaps we will not see an extensive stimulus package?

ECB

Outgoing ECB governing council member, Ewald Nowotny, spoke in an interview to the Wiener Zeitung newspaper and said that:

"In past years we perhaps followed markets' expectations too intensively and avoided disappointing them. I am of the opinion that central banks should be the decisive institution and must therefore sometimes disappoint markets."

He did not dive any deeper into what sort of "disappointment" he meant above. But if anything else, it echoes the message that ECB vice president Luis de Guindos was trying to convey with his remarks yesterday here.

As it stands, markets are definitely anticipating a cut in the deposit facility rate alongside rate tiering. To some extent, markets are also expecting the ECB to possibly announce the restart of its QE programme. We can only wait and see if they will deliver on that front.

In case you need a reminder, Nowotny's tenure as Austrian central bank governor will come to an end this weekend and his post will be succeeded by Robert Holzmann.