Mario Draghi today laid out plans for the end of the European Central Bank’s bond buying purchases.
The ECB will drop bond purchases to €30 billion until September then down to €15 million in October, November and December when bond purchases will finish.
Draghi did place a caveat on the plan, however, saying that the reduction in purchases would be on the condition that Eurozone economic data remained robust.
The comments gave a dovish tone to the delivery and the Euro fell heavily against the dollar sending European equity indices higher.
The announcement came after the Federal Reserve increased interest rates for the seventh time in the current tightening cycle to 2% from 1.75%.
In same manner the European Central Bank were slow to adopt QE in the first place, they have been slow to signal a return to normality.
This risks them not being able to prepare sufficiently, from a monetary policy standpoint, for any downturn in the global economy and could have long term implications.
Draghi also released downward revisions for economic growth in the Eurozone and pointed towards external factors such as a potential trade war as reasons for caution.