AFTER SUCKING UP and taking our medicine over the last year or so, it’s time for the reward.
With inflation largely under control, European interest rates should fall some time in the first half of the year, possibly as early as April.
That’s the logic from most investors, economists and other ‘market experts’ anyway.
This comes despite the fact that policy makers at the European Central Bank (ECB) have been trying to downplay the possibility of rate cuts as they battle still-persistent inflation.
The fear is that over-optimistic investors could pour more money into markets on the expectation that interest rates will be cut, actually making inflation worse.
Nerves were hardly settled by the fact that eurozone inflation rose from 2.4% to 2.9% between November and December, although core inflation – which strips out volatile categories such as energy and food – dipped slightly to 3.4% from 3.6%.