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London / WAM
Europe’s main stock markets pushed higher on Wednesday, shrugging off losses across Asia on the eve of a key meeting of the ECB as traders look for policy action from central bankers.
The European Central Bank will almost certainly announce new stimulus measures at its policy meeting on Thursday, analysts said, as eurozone inflation turns negative and the economic outlook continues to cloud over.
By the afternoon the gains had increased with London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index up 0.5%, while eurozone heavyweights Frankfurt and Paris gained 1.1 and 0.9 percent respectively.
The IMF urged governments to take action to prevent another global recession, warning there was an increasingly “dangerous†view that policymakers are out of ideas or had lost the will.
After disappointing financial markets with what were widely perceived as half-hearted measures in December, ECB chief Mario Draghi will announce bolder policy moves this time round, central bank watchers predicted.
These were most likely to include a further cut in interest rates, an increase in the volume of bonds it buys each month under its so-called quantitative easing stimulus and a further extension of that measure beyond its current timeframe of March 2017.