Reuters is out with an ECB sources report that says they’re wary of hiking in April as there is no evidence yet of second-round effects.
Yesterday, the market had been pricing in a 39% chance of a hike and this looks designed to drive that down. The way the ECB does business is bizarre as Lagarde was speaking yesterday and could have done this herself but didn’t offer any kind of nod.
My guess is that this is part of a long climbdown from hawkish talk as the war winds down. The odds of an April hike are already down to 23% and a single hike is now priced in For June with 57 bps of hikes on the year.
All of that sounds too hawkish to me with the IMF yesterday dropping its Eurozone growth forecast to 1.1% from 1.3%.
The euro is largely unmoved.
