ECB held rate on hold at 1%

No major surprise come from today’s ECB’s monetary policy meeting. The ECB left rates unchanged at 1% and indicated that “that the rate for the twelve-month longer-term refinancing operation to be allotted on 30 September 2009 will be the prevailing rate on the main refinancing operations”. Notwithstanding the signs of recovery come from economic data published in the last few weeks, the ECB believe that the economic outlook is still uncertain. The upward revision of economic growth projections (GDP is now expected to fall by 4,1% in 2009 and to rise by 0,2% in 2010) does not change the medium/term outlook for monetary policy. As we have explained in the post ECB and Riksbank: no exit strategy in sight we believe that an ECB’s exit strategy from the current expansionary monetary policy is far from close and that the Refi rate is likely to remain unchanged at 1% for a long time.