Assets in Europe received their first “taper tantrum”-style jolt on Tuesday afternoon with a report that policymakers at the European Central Bank (ECB) were looking at winding back its trillion-dollar bond-buying program.
Bloomberg cited officials at the euro zone’s central bank saying that the 80 billion euro-a-month program could be tapered in steps of 10 billion euros before the official conclusion of its quantitative easing. Although, it heavily caveated that view with suggestions it could still be extended past the current end-date of March 2017.
A spokesperson for the ECB said that the Governing Council “has not discussed these topics”, which President Mario Draghi has previously iterated. And market watchers just weren’t buying the news either.
