ECB hawks still in the minority

In an otherwise quiet week, the main economic news was the publication of the minutes of June’s ECB meeting. They showed that members of the Governing Council “widely agreed” to update their forward guidance, which now states that interest rates will be on hold “at least through the summer of 2019”. In fact, the minutes implied that there is a bias towards leaving interest rates on hold for even longer than “through the summer” might suggest. In other news, euro-zone industrial data for May suggested that the economy fared a bit better in Q2 than in Q1. And the final payment of Greece’s bailout was delayed, but we doubt that it will be held up for long.