European Central Bank leaves its key interest rate at record low of 0.05 percent

Frankfurt (Nov 6)  The European Central Bank, as expected, left interest rates unchanged Thursday.
Following its monetary policy meeting, the main refinancing operation remains at 0.05%, its marginal lending facility rate stands at 0.30% and its deposit facility remains at negative 0.20%.
Markets will now wait until 8:30 a.m. EST to hear ECB President Mario Draghi’s update on the central bank’s quantitative easing strategy. Markets have been pricing in more easing from the ECB since last week after the Bank of Japan announced a significant increase in its purchase program. However, it has only been one month since the ECB launched its asset-purchase program and analysts are not expecting to any new programs from Draghi just yet.
The eurozone economy is facing dual headwinds of low inflation and low growth. Tuesday, the European Commission slashed its growth forecast for 2014. The commission now expects the 18-nation region to see economic growth of 0.8% this year, down from the previous forecast of 1.2%. The 2015 growth outlook was slashed to 1.1% from the previous forecast of 1.7%.

Last week, Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, said that inflation grew 0.4% in October, only slightly higher than September’s multi-year low reading of 0.3%.

Source: KitcoNews