The European Central Bank is widely expected to cut interest rates at its policy meeting next week, so investors will be focused on trying to find clues about its likely moves later this year.
A quarter-point cut on March 6, which is fully priced in by the swaps market, would bring down the deposit facility rate to 2.5 per cent, the lowest level since February 2023 and 1.5 percentage points below its peak.
Executive board member Isabel Schnabel told the Financial Times in February that the central bank should “now” start to debate a “pause or halt” to rate cuts, adding that rates have come down so far that “we can no longer say with confidence that our monetary policy is still restrictive.”