ECB keeps interest rates unchanged, all eyes on Lagarde's presser

The European Central Bank kept all its main policy settings unchanged, as expected.

Nevertheless, investors' focus was in fact on ECB chief, Christine Lagarde's press conference scheduled for 1330 BST, at which she was expected to try to 'talk down the euro', according to some analysts.

Against that backdrop, interest rates for the ECB's main refinancing operations, marginal lending facility and deposit facility were kept at 0.0%, 0.25% and -0.5%.

So too the size of the monetary authority's PEPP assset purchase programme to counter the Covid-19 pandemic was kept at €1.35trn and that of the more standard APP, which was recently topped with a further €120bn in additional funds, was maintained at €20bn per month.

Finally, the central bank said that it would continue to provide ample liquidity through its refinancing operations, including the so-called targeted long-term refinancing operations or TLTROs.