Gladiator Finance's European Markets Close to 7yr Highs After ECB - 6th March 2015

March 6, 2015 - PRLog -- At Gladiator Finance our aim is to provide innovative, highly customised and bespoke solutions and advice that are infinitely more personal and independent than any offered by your bank or other financial advisory firm.

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Gladiator Finance's European Markets Close to 7yr Highs After ECB - 6th March 2015

European indexes edged to 7 year highs yesterday after the March meeting of the European Central Bank and the comments it made late in the afternoon.

The ECB completed its meeting in Frankfurt yesterday and confirmed that its €1.1tn QE program would start next month. The scheme which will see the ECB purchase bonds up to €60bn each month till September 2016 was announced earlier in the year and has been eagerly anticipated since the issues in Greece came to light a few months ago.

Mario Draghi, the Head of the ECB confirmed that it could run past September next year if needed and that they would also look into the possibility of purchasing Euro bonds with negative yields of up to 20 basis points.

This news saw a run on Euro bonds with many investors looking to the weaker bonds as a possible store of value now.

After supplying details of the QE program the head then went on to revise the central banks outlook for 2015 by increasing their growth forecast from 1% to 1.5% for the EU in 2015 and this is expected to rise to 2.1% by 2017.

Although negative inflation is set to continue towards the end of 2015 it is predicted that it should start to rise by the end of the year and that 1.8% by 2017 should be achievable. This is still under the 2% target set by the bank however it is seen as a probable target given the timeframe.

Growth for the Eurozone was confirmed at 0.3% in the final quarter of 2014. The improvement was mainly due to a strong performance by Germany.

Greece was mentioned and the ECB suggested that Athens may not be able to secure further emergency funds at the rate it is requesting them and that it was down to Greece to provide reforms which would save it from having to exit the EU.

Ultimately the meeting and its comments were seen as positive for the region with several of the major indexes reaching close to record highs however the Euro did fall to $1.10 against the dollar and this hasn’t been seen since September 2007.

5th March 2015

FTSE 100 - 6,961.14 (+0.61%)

DAX - 11,504.01 (+1.00%)

CAC 40 - 4,963.51 (+0.94%)

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