The European Central Bank signaled on Wednesday that there would be no change or premature end to its bond purchasing program. President Mario Dragi announced at the Frankfurt press conference that ‘the asset-purchase programs are proceeding well’. Draghi said there could even be more stimulus on the way if its inflation targets aren’t met, but added that he saw no reason to do so at the moment. Draghi announced that ‘while remaining on the downside, the risks surrounding the economic outlook for the Euro area have become more balanced on account of our monetary policy decisions and oil price and exchange rate developments.’ As expected, the ECB left interest rates unchanged. The ECB began its 1.1 trillion-euro ($1.2 trillion) quantitative-easing program three months ago. Inflation rose to an annual rate of 0.3 percent last month, the first increase in 6 months, but remains way below the ECB’s 2% target. ECB economists have made no change to their inflation forecast for 2016 and 2017 which stands at 1.5%.
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