Investing.com – As markets expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) made no changes to its record-low interest rates and announced no new measures on Thursday.
Specifically, he ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record-low 0.0%, in line with forecasts.
The central bank also held its deposit facility rate steady at -0.4% and its marginal lending rate remained at 0.25%.
Additionally, the ECB also confirmed, as previously announced, that the size of its monthly quantitative easing program would be reduced by €20 billion starting in April and continue at a monthly pace of €60 billion ($63.4 billion) until the end of December 2017, “or beyond, if necessary”.
“The Governing Council continues to expect the key ECB interest rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of the net asset purchases,” the statement said.
After the decision, traders looked ahead to ECB president Mario Draghi’s press conference at 8:30AM ET (13:30GMT).
While Draghi is expected to downplay recent readings of headline inflation near its target of close to, but below, 2%, as a temporary factor due to higher energy prices, market participants will pay close attention to any hints on future path of monetary policy with particular regard to the removal of accommodation.
After the announcement and ahead of Draghi, EUR/USD was trading at 1.0548 from around 1.0559 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.8672 from 0.8686 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were broadly lower. The benchmark Euro Stoxx 50 lost 0.16%, France's CAC 40 dropped 0.26%, Germany's DAX fell 0.23%, while London’s FTSE 100 traded down 0.79%.