{"id":2785,"date":"2025-09-12T16:52:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T16:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/12\/ecb-holds-rates-steady-signals-easing-cycle-may-be-over\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T16:52:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T16:52:32","slug":"ecb-holds-rates-steady-signals-easing-cycle-may-be-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/12\/ecb-holds-rates-steady-signals-easing-cycle-may-be-over\/","title":{"rendered":"ECB Holds Rates Steady, Signals Easing Cycle May Be Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>The European Central Bank (ECB) kept its deposit rate unchanged at 2.00% on Thursday, marking the second consecutive pause after eight cuts since June 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The unanimous decision came as inflation hovers around the bank\u2019s 2% target and economic risks appear more balanced following recent trade agreements.<\/p>\n<h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>ECB held <strong>all three key rates unchanged<\/strong>: deposit rate at 2.00%, main refinancing at 2.15%, marginal lending at 2.40%<\/li>\n<li>Decision was <strong>unanimous<\/strong>, marking second consecutive pause after eight cuts since June 2024<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Inflation<\/strong> <strong>projections<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>2.1% in 2025 (up from 2.0%)<\/li>\n<li>1.7% in 2026 (up from 1.6%)<\/li>\n<li>1.9% in 2027 (down from 2.0%)<\/li>\n<li>Core inflation forecast: 2.4% in 2025, 1.9% in 2026, 1.8% in 2027<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Growth<\/strong> <strong>projections<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>1.2% in 2025 (up from 0.9%)<\/li>\n<li>1.0% in 2026 (slightly lower)<\/li>\n<li>1.3% in 2027 (unchanged)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Lagarde<\/strong>: \u201c<em>The disinflationary process is over,<\/em>\u201d and ECB remains \u201cin a good place.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>ECB maintains <strong>data-dependent<\/strong>, meeting-by-meeting approach with no pre-commitment to a rate path<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Growth risks<\/strong> are now \u201cmore balanced\u201d with trade uncertainty \u201cclearly diminished\u201d after trade agreements<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Link to European Central Bank Statement (September 2025)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In her presser, ECB President Christine Lagarde delivered hawkish messaging, declaring that \u201cthe disinflationary process is over\u201d and reiterating that the ECB continues to be \u201cin a good place\u201d with inflation sitting at their 2% target.<\/p>\n<p>Most significantly, she characterized risks to economic growth as \u201cmore balanced\u201d than before, while noting that trade uncertainty has \u201cclearly diminished\u201d following recent EU-U.S. trade agreements that set 15% tariffs on most goods.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Lagarde continued to emphasize that the ECB will \u201cfollow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach\u201d to determining policy, explicitly stating they\u2019re \u201cnot pre-committing to a particular rate path.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ECB\u2019s updated projections showed mixed signals, raising 2025 inflation to 2.1% while cutting the 2027 forecast to 1.9%, which is below their 2% target. However, Lagarde downplayed this undershoot, stating that \u201cminimal deviations\u201d wouldn\u2019t necessarily justify policy action. Growth forecasts were upgraded to 1.2% for 2025, though 2026 was trimmed to 1.0%.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Link to ECB Press Conference (September 2025)<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Market Reactions<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Euro vs. Major Currencies: 5-min<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The euro saw increased volatility before the ECB decision, likely as traders positioned ahead of the closely-watched U.S. CPI report. EUR initially weakened following the rate announcement, but quickly reversed higher as soft U.S. jobless claims data weighed on the dollar, boosting the shared currency against major counterparts.<\/p>\n<p>The euro extended gains through Lagarde\u2019s press conference, with traders scaling back rate-cut expectations. Markets now price less than 50% odds of another ECB cut through June 2026, down from 60% pre-meeting. However, the rally faded hours before the London close when risk appetite surged, dragging EUR lower against commodity currencies and Sterling even as it maintained gains versus safe havens.<\/p>\n<p>The euro finished mixed \u2013 higher against USD, JPY, and CAD but lower against CHF, AUD, NZD, and GBP \u2013 reflecting its middle-ground status between safe havens and risk-sensitive currencies in the shifting market environment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Central Bank (ECB) kept its deposit rate unchanged at 2.00% on Thursday, marking the second consecutive pause after eight cuts since June 2024. The unanimous decision came as inflation hovers around the bank\u2019s 2% target and economic risks appear more balanced following recent trade agreements. Key Takeaways ECB held all three key rates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379.png",780,379,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379-300x146.png",300,146,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379-768x373.png",640,311,true],"large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379.png",640,311,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379.png",780,379,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379.png",780,379,false],"morenews-featured":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379.png",780,379,false],"morenews-large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379.png",780,379,false],"morenews-medium":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379-590x379.png",590,379,true],"crawlomatic_preview_image":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2785-EUR-780x379-260x126.png",260,126,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"henry","author_link":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/author\/henry\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/category\/latest-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Latest News<\/a>","tag_info":"Latest News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}