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 in what was its first policy decision of 2017.
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 kept the size of its monthly quantitative easing program at approximately €80 billion where it is expected to stay through the end of March.
From April 2017, the net asset purchases are intended to continue at a monthly pace of €60 billion until the end of December 2017, or beyond, if necessary, the ECB statement said.
“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 added.
After the decision, traders looked ahead to ECB president Mario Draghi’s press conference at 13:30GMT, or 8:30AM ET.
Market participants will pay close attention to any {{news- 454125||hints on the outlook for the asset purchase program}}.
Draghi may also touch on recently strong reads on economic activity and inflation, challenges for Italy’s banking sector, recent lending data and any impact from the U.K.’s process to leave the European Union or upcoming policies from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
After the announcement and ahead of Draghi, EUR/USD was trading at 1.0663 from around 1.0662 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.8644 from 0.8647 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were mostly lower. The benchmark Euro Stoxx 50 lost 0.11%, France's CAC 40 dropped 0.13%, Germany's DAX gave up 0.11%, while London’s FTSE 100 lost 0.57%.