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The European Central Bank held its benchmark interest rate at 1.5% Thursday, in the face of faltering euro zone growth and a debt crisis that has been roiling global markets.
President Jean-Claude Trichet said the ECB stands ready to provide liquidity for European banks as needed, in addition to the purchases of Italian and Spanish debt it undertook in August. The ECB staff lowered its projections for the euro zone economy and now expects growth of 1.4%-1.8% in 2011 (down from 1.5%-2.3% in June) and 0.3%-2.2% in 2012 (down from 0.6% to 2.8%).
European equities were in the red following the ECB rate decision, with Germany’s DAX off 1.4%. In the U.S., index futures turned south after the Labor Department reported new unemployment claims rose to 414,000 last week, from an upwardly revised 412,000 the week prior. Shortly after the open the declines were modest though, with the Dow Jones industrial average down 31 points to 11,384, the S&P 500 off 7 points to 1,192 and the Nasdaq 12 points lower at 2,537.
The latest weekly jobless figures come hours before President Barack Obama is due to give a heavily-anticipated speech on jobs to Congress that is expected to include a pitch for a $300 billion package of tax cuts and infrastructure spending geared toward increasing employment. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set for an afternoon speech in Minnesota that the market will parse for any signals of action at the central bank’s Sept 20-21 meeting.
source: forbes.com
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