The European Central Bank, as expected, left interest rates unchanged and made no changes to its bond-buying efforts on Thursday. The ECB said the Governing Council decided to “reconfirm its very accommodative monetary policy stance.” The central bank said it would continue to buy bonds under its 1.85 trillion euro pandemic emergency purchase program until at least the end of March 2022, while net purchases under its asset purchase program would continue at a monthly pace of 20 billion euros. The ECB said PEPP purchases, as decided at the ECB’s previous meeting, will continue at a significantly faster pace over the current quarter. Interest rates were left unchanged, with the main refinancing rate at 0% and the deposit rate at minus 0.5%. ECB President Christine Lagarde will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. Frankfurt time, or 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
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