ECB Hikes 50bps As Expected, Issues Dovish Forward Guidance, Unveils Climate QE

In a mirror image of the dovish BOE earlier this morning, which hiked 50bps but signaled that its tightening cycle may well be over sending sterling and gilt yields sliding, moments ago the ECB, which continues to believe erroneously that if only it can crash the European economy it will somehow have control over Russian commodity prices, hiked interest rates by 50bps, as expected.

Also in a dovish twist of forward guidance, the central bank also said intends to hike another 50bps in March, and only then will it "evaluate the subsequent path of its monetary policy." This is actually dovish because in December's press conference Lagarde flagged that we could see as many as three more 50bp hikes... not any more. Here is the statement:

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Feature image, European Parliament from EU, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.