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Bloomberg
The European Central Bank will spend 2018 guiding its bond-buying program to a gentle halt as the euro zone benefits from the most-synchronized economic growth in two decades, according to a Bloomberg survey.
Policy makers, who have already agreed to halve monthly purchases to 30 billion euros ($35 billion) starting next month, will taper them to zero in the final three months of the year, the poll of economists showed. Still, most respondents said that decision won’t be taken until June or July as President Mario Draghi and his colleagues fret about upsetting markets by signaling an exit from crisis measures too soon.
“As things currently stand, we don’t see much action from the central bank in the first half of 2018, with a very much steady-as-she-goes policy remaining in place,†said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Merrion Capital in Dublin, Ireland.
The survey points to a relatively quiet policy meeting on Dec. 14, when the highlight will be the ECB’s updated estimates for economic growth and inflation. Those figures will include the first projections for 2020, and will emphasize how far the Frankfurt-based central bank is lagging behind some of its counterparts. The US Federal Reserve, which has already started shrinking its balance sheet to unwind its quantitative easing, is set to announce its third interest-rate increase of the year on Wednesday, and signal more for 2018.