The European Central Bank in Front and Centre
Yesterday, the Bank of Canada (BoC) announced that it was maintaining its key rate unchanged. The BoC also took advantage of the situation to reduce its growth forecasts for the Canadian economy for 2016 and 2017, thereby forcing it to keep an expansionary bias. This caused the loonie to fall by close to 100 bps against the greenback.
This morning it will be the turn of the European Central Bank to announce its key rate decision for the EU. ECB President Mario Draghi will announce the decision at 7:45 a.m. Markets are not forecasting a rate change (currently at 0.05%), but there could be an increase in the amount of monetary stimulus provided. This would probably result in additional downward pressure on the
euro.
In North America, we are awaiting Retail Sales figures in Canada and Initial Jobless Claims and Existing Home Sales numbers in the United States.
