“The ECB Is Basically Giving The Finger To Italy”: Is Draghi Risking Everything To Teach Rome A Lesson

• “The ECB Is Basically Giving The Finger To Italy”: Is Draghi Risking Everything To Teach Rome A Lesson
  by Tyler Durden, https://www.zerohedge.com/
  Perhaps the most perplexing market-moving event of the past 48 hours, was the 1-2 punch of a Tuesday Bloomberg report that next Thursday’s ECB meeting is “live” in that policy makers anticipate (at long last) holding a discussion that could conclude with a public announcement on when they intend to cease asset purchases (QE), coupled with a slew of ECB members overnight coming out with unexpectedly hawkish comments.
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  Of these, the ECB’s otherwise dovish Peter Praet said inflation expectations are increasingly consistent with the ECB’s aim, and added that markets are expecting an end of QE at end of 2018, this is an observation and input that is up for discussion and that “it’s  clear that next week the Governing Council will have to make this assessment, the assessment on whether the progress so far has been sufficient to warrant a gradual unwinding of our net asset purchases.”
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  Other ECB hawks such Hanson, Weidmann and Knot doubled down on the central bank’s sudden QE-ending jawboning pivot, saying that the ECB could lift rates before mid-2019 due to “moderately” rising inflation, that market expectation of end of QE by end of 2018 is plausible, and that the ECB should wind down QE as soon as possible. The market response was instant, and it not only pushed both German and Italian yields sharply higher…
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