Fidelity International: ECB likely staying on hold in October

Fidelity International: ECB likely staying on hold in October

September 12, 2024

Interest Rates
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Salman Ahmed, Global Head of Macro and Strategic Asset Allocation, Fidelity International, comments on today’s European Central Bank (ECB) decision:

As expected, the ECB delivered another 25 basis point (bps) cut, leaving the deposit rate at 3.5%. The messaging in the statement and the press conference was broadly unchanged with continued strong data dependency and no pre-commitment for any specific future rate path. New staff-projections released showed slightly weaker growth across the forecast range along with higher core inflation for this year and the next. Although growth remains weak, as we are picking up from the signal in our activity trackers, the ECB remains more focused on inflation, which is its single mandate, and that has remained sticky particularly due to elevated wages and services inflation.

We see the next opportunity to assess this stance to be in December when the ECB has better visibility on wage growth in Q3-24. Accordingly, we expect the next 25bps cut to come in December, with the ECB likely staying on hold in October, which is more hawkish than the market is pricing. However, if wage growth continues to decelerate quicker than expected, we would expect clearer guidance towards a series of cuts that opens an accelerated pace of cuts in 2025 from currently one a quarter.

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