Europe Slides Toward Recession As ECB ‘Enjoys The View’ From Rate Mountain

The ECB "definitely did not discuss rate cuts" this week, Christine Lagarde insisted, after the bank's final policy meeting of 2023. That might be true, but with inflation down dramatically and activity gauges indicative of contraction, policymakers may need to start that discussion sooner than they'd ideally like to. Less than 24 hours after Lagarde spoke to the press, preliminary reads on S&P Global's PMIs for December painted a disheartening picture. The composite gauge printed just 47