What will be the real impact of ECB action?

Cazenove Capital's Richard Jeffrey looks at what the European Central Bank's latest policy move means for markets.

It is often the case that central banks make policy changes because they want to be seen to be doing something, and not because they believe a policy change will have a beneficial impact. I suspect this is probably true of the latest policy action announced by the ECB. Economists have been tying themselves in knots over the possibility of deflation in the eurozone and the weakness of the recovery, and finally the resulting pressure on the ECB has forced a policy reaction. But did it really believe it needed to act? Given the ECB had not done very much on the policy front for about six...