Our central expectation going in to the ECB meeting was that President Draghi would try to exceed expectations. He is a past master of this, very skilled at manipulating opinion and then over-delivering. The problem is that markets have got increasingly used to this tactic, with the ‘whisper number’ for QE over EUR100bn higher than the EUR500bn which had been floated by his Executive Board colleagues just a couple of weeks ago. In the event, and with some presentational double-counting, he was able once again to produce numbers which beat consensus.
Read the full report: Economic Research