The European Central Bank on Thursday announced it would extend its bond buying program through September 2018, but slow the pace of purchases to 30 billion euros a month beginning in January from its current monthly pace of 60 billion euros. The ECB said it could extend the purchases beyond September “if necessary,” and that if conditions deteriorated, it stood ready to increase the size of the program in terms of size and/or duration. Also, the ECB will continue to reinvest principal payments from maturing securities it has purchased “for an extended period,” the bank said. The ECB had been widely expected to extend the program past its scheduled end date in December but to reduce the size of purchases by 20 billion to 40 billion euros. The ECB, as expected, left interest rates unchanged and reiterated that rates would remain at present levels well beyond the end of its asset-buying program. More details are expected when ECB President Mario Draghi holds a news conference in Frankfurt at 2:30 p.m. local time, or 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
From:: Stock Market News