Mr Cœuré reviewed the latest financial market developments. Since the Governing Council’s previous monetary policy meeting on 9-10 April 2019, US trade negotiations with both China and Mexico had progressively deteriorated, negatively impacting global equity markets and pushing equity risk premia higher. Bond yields had declined to multi-year lows. In foreign exchange markets, the euro and the US dollar had appreciated in nominal effective terms, reflecting mainly the weakness in emerging market currencies and, in particular, the Chinese renminbi. At the same time, the euro had continued its gradual depreciation a ... (full story)

European Central Bank policymakers gathering last month agreed on the need to be ready to provide more stimulus to the euro zone economy in an environment of “heightened uncertainty”, an ECB account of the meeting showed on Thursday. With a trade war between the United States and China hurting euro zone exporters and the Federal Reserve widely expected to cut its interest rate, the ECB is coming under pressure to ease its own policy again. The bank’s Governing Council put off any rate hike for at least a year at its June 5-6 meeting and President Mario Draghi emphatically opened the door to more stimulus in the ... (full story)