(Bloomberg) Mario Draghi will have to go the extra mile on quantitative easing before he can think of slowing down, economists say.
Seventy-eight percent of the 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg from Oct. 7-14 forecast the ECB will announce fresh stimulus, and nine in ten of those say it will happen in December at the earliest. Few expect action when the 25-member Governing Council meets in Frankfurt on Thursday to set policy.
The share of those predicting an extension of asset purchases has increased since the central bank’s last policy meeting in September. At the same time, fewer see more rate cuts on the horizon as concerns mount that negative rates are squeezing profitability for the region’s lenders.
Seventy-three percent of survey respondents said the ECB will change its QE parameters.
(Reuters) A stable but lackluster economic outlook will push the European Central Bank to tweak its asset purchase program and announce an extension by year-end, although economists polled by Reuters said a move was unlikely next week.
Over 90 percent of the economists in Reuters poll (conducted over the past week) who had a view on what the ECB would likely do by year-end, picked an extension to the QE program beyond March 2017 as the most likely option.
Almost half of them said some changes in the technical parameters of QE was probable too.
Reference: Bloomberg, Reuters
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