European QE Starts with a Bang

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced the launch of an open-ended, expanded monthly 60 billion euro ($70 billion) private and public bond-buying program on Thursday.

The long-anticipated introduction of euro zone government bond purchases, which could amount to as much as a trillion euros, will mean the ECB will join the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan in launching a quantitative easing (QE) scheme.

The program will be open-ended, lasting until at least 2016, Draghi told reporters at his regular media conference on Thursday, and will start in March this year. The hope is that it will boost the region’s painfully low inflation rate, which came in at an annual minus 0.2 percent in December.

CNBC

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