The ECB has announced a raft of stimulus measures including a negative deposit rate in order to boost the Eurozone economy and combat the threat of deflation. It’s also announced a new round of “LTRO”s which aim to get money to businesses and it suspended bond sterlisation.  Saxo Bank’s Head of FX Strategy, John Hardy, says “it’s pretty much the big bazooka”.

Mario Draghi, the ECB President, announced that the key interest rate would fall to 0.15% from 0.25% and banks will now be charged to park their money with the central bank as the deposit rate goes to minus 0.10% .  Draghi is hoping that the measures will combat the threat of deflation and spur more growth.  John says this is about as dovish as the market could possibly expect on the credit easing measures, even if the hawkish development is that the ECB is signaling that it won’t move on rates again for some time.