European Central Bank decision for July 2018

Mario
Draghi, President of the European Central Bank (ECB) waits for
the start of the European Banking Congress in the Old Opera house
in Frankfurt, November 21, 2014.
REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

• The European Central Bank will announce its latest
  monetary policy decisions at 12:45 p.m. BST (7:45 a.m.
  ET).
• The meeting is expected to be uneventful, with policy
  almost entirely certain to be unchanged.
• While the meeting should be fairly straightforward,
  trade tensions could complicate matters.

LONDON — The European Central Bank will announce its latest
monetary policy decisions after the July meeting of its governing
council, the final meeting before its summer break.

The meeting is expected to be uneventful, with policy almost
entirely certain to be unchanged. Future guidance is also likely
to stay the same as the central bank winds down for the summer.

That will mean a base deposit rate of -0.4%, and a quantitative
easing program of €30 billion per month — a figure that will be
reduced to €15 billion per month from September as the bank winds
down its bond buying. The ECB will cease purchasing bonds from
the end of 2018.

Policy decisions will be announced at 12:45 p.m. BST (7:45 a.m.
ET), while ECB President Mario Draghi will speak to the media 45
minutes later.

While the meeting should be fairly straightforward, trade
tensions could complicate matters, although Wednesday’s tacit
agreement between President Donald Trump and European Commission
President Jean Claude Juncker may remove trade from the bank’s
thoughts.

“As long as the trade tensions do not escalate into an
outright trade war, we see no reason for
the 
ECB 
to change its June
guidance,” Berenberg economist Florian Hense said in a note to
clients earlier this week.

This post will be updated following the announcement of the
ECB’s decision.