European Central Bank

Judging by the 200 pip tumble since the ECB's meeting on Thursday, the EURUSD was at 1.1614 moments ago, the unexpectedly dovish taper clearly surprised many, and attention has fallen on the open-ended nature of the operation as the focus of that surprise. And speaking of said "open-ended" taper, overnight Boersen-Zeitung reported that Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, Executive Board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger and Dutch central bank Governor Klaas Knot all opposed Draghi's decision.

US equity futures are higher, boosted by a bevy of better than expected earnings out of tech giants Amazon, Intel and Microsoft as Asian stocks and European shares climb amid the dovish sentiment unleashed from Thursday’s ECB update.

Gold will be safe haven again in looming EU crisis

US equity futures and Asian shares are flat this morning with European shares treading water ahead of the ECB's policy meeting in which it’s expected to announce a tapering to its €60bn in monthly QE. On this busiest day of Q3 earnings season, companies set to report earnings include Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Intel, while we also get data on jobless claims and wholesale inventories.

Following up to our earlier preview of today's critical ECB announcement, here is Bloomberg macro commentator Tanvir Sundhu, who says not to sweat what Draghi says today as the ECB will be able to avoid a "taper tantrum" (for now) and as a result the risk isn’t that the ECB is going to set off a sustained bond bear market, but - due to the shortage of monetizable assets - "it’s that it might find itself low on ammunition if the economy or prices suddenly turn south."

From Sundhu's latest Macro View: