ECB Cuts Rates

The ECB cut rates today in an effort to fight against worryingly low inflation.

According to the WSJ:

The Frankfurt-based central bank cut the main interest rate at which it lends to banks to 0.25% from 0.5%, and slashed its emergency lending facility by 0.25 percentage point to 0.75%, the ECB said Thursday. The governing council decided to keep the deposit rate on bank funds parked at the ECB unchanged at zero.

In another excerpt:

The ECB had kept the main interest rate unchanged since May, preferring instead to rely on the forward guidance it issued in July to keep interest rates at current or lower levels for "an extended period of time." But a worryingly low inflation reading for October, reported last week, caught investors and government officials off guard and may have put pressure on the ECB to take action sooner rather than later to shore up its guidance. The vast majority of economists had expected the ECB to stand pat Thursday.

The ECB has come a long way since the days of Jean-Claude Trichet.