Analysis-Investors stick to bets on early end to ECB hikes as uncertainty grows

By Yoruk Bahceli, Naomi Rovnick

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Investors held tight to bets that banking jitters would rein in the ECB’s ability to jack up borrowing costs in the months ahead, as the central bank delivered a large rate hike on Thursday but wouldn’t signal future moves given an uncertain outlook. 

As promised at its last meeting, the European Central Bank maintained a 50-basis-point increase.

Market turmoil last week at Silicon Valley Bank, which led to the collapse of U.S. lender Silicon Valley Bank and a subsequent rout in Credit Suisse shares this week had caused doubt among traders. This week’s banking panic spread to Europe.

The substantial increase was still seen as a coin toss on Thursday, after Credit Suisse received a $54billion lifeline from the Swiss central banks that calmed markets.

Despite its size, the ECB did not make any commitments to the future despite several previous calls from policymakers for greater efforts to control sticky inflation.

(Graphic: ECB sticks to big hike ECB sticks to big hike – https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-CENTRALBANKS/gdvzqkyzbpw/chart.png)

Christine Lagarde, President, noted that it was impossible for the future rate to be determined. “completely elevated” Market ructions cause uncertainty.

“Given financial instability risks, there’s growing uncertainty on future ECB actions beyond this pre-signalled rate hike,” Daniele Antonucci was chief economist at Quintet Private Bank and macro strategist.

Traders bet on a 60% chance for a rate hike of 25 basis points in May. Then rates will peak around 3.4% in August, according ICAP data.

A 50 bps rate hike in May was considered the most likely outcome of the bank sector crisis. Rates had been forecasted to reach a peak at just over 4 % by year’s end.

A number of investment banks revised down their May forecasts to a 25 bps increase. Commerzbank, Goldman Sachs, and Commerzbank have reduced their expectations of where rate increases will be stopped.

The ECB said that it is ready to preserve not only price stability but also financial stability. It will also consider financial data as part of its assessment on the inflation outlook.

“Forward guidance ended for good,” Frederik Ducrozet is Pictet Wealth Management’s head of macroeconomic research.

“The important bit is that financial and banking stress will be included as inputs into future decisions,” He concluded.

Sources told Reuters that ECB policymakers approved Thursday’s 50 bps increase after Credit Suisse was backed by the SNB. Discussions had been focused on the 50 bps move, or no change at all, as a demonstration of the difficult choices facing the ECB’s policy outlook due to banking uncertainty.

VOLATILITY

Investors were reassured to know that the ECB was going to be more data-dependent moving forward.

Lagarde said that, as the ECB has the tools to lend liquidity to the bloc’s financial system if required, there was no compromise between price stability or financial stability.

The ECB initiated an emergency bond-buying scheme to calm panicky markets in the wake of the 2020 COVID-19 Crisis. The ECB unveiled last year a new antifragmentation tool that helped to limit bond market stress due to rising interest rates.

European bank stocks were up 1.1% on Thursday and fell on Friday, but they are still down 12% from last Friday.

Although bond yields rose Thursday and Friday due to traders sticking to shallower rate hike betting, two-year German yields fell more than 40 bps this week. This is the biggest drop since 1992.

Carmignac’s fixed income analyst Michael Michaelides stated that he had expected that the ECB would announce Thursday that it was working on new instruments for backingstopping the banking sector. “they didn’t even get that far,” He said.

Many forecast market volatility to continue.

“People will not rush to try and buy up anything…you’re not quite sure what the next shoe to drop might be so I think there will be a period of consolidation,” Jason Simpson is a senior fixed income strategist at State Street’s SPDR ETF company.

Piet Christiansen from Danske Bank was the chief analyst. He said he will continue to call for a 4% peak ECB Rate.

    “Unless this turns into a macroeconomic crisis then we are ripe for a sell-off and a repricing of rate hike expectations,” He said.

(Reporting by Yoruk Bhceli, Dhararanasinghe in Amsterdam, Naomi Rovnick, and Chiara Elisei at London; Editing and Dhararanasinghe with Frances Kerry

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