- The European Central Bank said Thursday it will restart its purchases of government bonds in an attempt to support a slowing eurozone economy. It also cut its deposit rate by 10 basis points to a new record low of -0.5% and said it would introduce a new regime to spare banks some of the pain of negative rates.
Key decisions:
- Deposit rate cut to -0.5% from -0.4%; first cut since March 2016
- Main refinancing rate left unchanged at 0%
- TLTRO pricing to be linked to deposit rate for banks that meet lending criteria
- Bond purchases to start in November at a rate of 20 billion euros ($22 billion) a month and to run "for as long as necessary".
- Read more: ECB's policy statement in full
- EUR/USD at $1.0969 vs $1.1023 immediately before the announcement.
- German government 10-year yield at -0.57% vs -0.59%, Italian 10-year yield at 0.84% vs 0.99%
