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ECB President Mario Draghi has finally announced a bond buying plan, and now the experts are weighing in.
Well that was exciting! After weeks of anticipation, and a fair number of news leaks, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi announced a bond buying plan aimed at shoring up the euro (and of course preserving price stability.) Currency markets reacted instantly - with a shrug.
"It was spot on what the market was expecting. No surprise and I have a strong feeling the ECB did not want to surprise," Steven Englander, global head of G10 FX strategy at Citigroup , told me.
"The ECB took another, positive step today," says Rebecca Patterson, chief investment officer of Bessemer Trust. "The world 'feels better.'" But that's today. "My bottom line: 'Enjoy it while it lasts,'" she told me.
Patterson argues that while the ECB did take the plunge and wade into a program aimed at shoring up weak euro zone countries, she "was equally struck by how much the ECB 'conceded' to the German 'camp.'" The rules could make it hard for a country to receive aid when it fails to meet its budget targets - an element that may well have been promoted by the austerity-minded Germans - but Patterson argues that that's when a country is most likely to need aid. "With slowing growth in Europe, isn't that just a matter of time?" she asks.
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