Don’t bet on ECB cuts in H1 of 2024, says governing council member

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

European Central Bank cuts interest rates in the first half of next year would be a mistake, according to Governing Council member Martins Kazaks.

Wage growth in the euro zone hasn't yet peaked and it's unclear how quickly underlying inflation will retreat, the head of Latvia's central bank said. Last week's decision to lift borrowing costs for a 10th straight time puts the ECB more solidly on track to reach its 2% target in 2025, but it's too soon to exclude another hike. “The market shouldn't expect that we would jump too early to cut rates,” Kazaks said in an interview.

“We'll start cutting rates when we see that we consistently and significantly start to undershoot our target, and what I can say clearly is that expectations of a rate cut in spring or early summer in my view are not really consistent with the macro scenario that we have.”

Traders are starting to price cuts from April of next year and some economists see them as early as June.

Projections presented last week show that inflation in the 20-member euro area will take another two years to reach 2%, even as price pressures are set to slow sharply in the coming months. The economy is seen returning to quarterly growth rates of 0.4% in 2024 after stagnating for most of 2023.

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