The Day Ahead: Most Important News Will Be In Before The Open

After Wednesday's FOMC Announcement failed to motivate markets much, the onus falls even more clearly on today's ECB announcement.  This was already probably the biggest deal of the week and the relatively unchanged FOMC statement simply confirmed that. 

The last time a major central bank policy change was more hotly anticipated and expected would probably be just before the inception of Operation Twist.   Actually, that would be the last time we remember the anticipation coming close to today's ECB news.  Chalk this up to Draghi's tough talk at the end of last week where he flat-out advocated that "stuff" Germany says falls outside the ECB mandate, DOES in fact fall within the mandate.

It didn't stop there.  After saying the standard issue "prepared to act" spiel that we've come to know and love from central bank chiefs, Draghi iced the cake in saying "and believe me, it will be enough!" 

It didn't stop there either...  The biggest anticipatory news hit on Friday when word spread that Draghi would meet the German central chief "before next Thursday" (i.e. before the ECB announcement) to discuss all this "stuff."  Clearly, we're meant to believe that Draghi went on a mission to convince the Bundesbank that some manner of unconventional policy is warranted and acceptable within the scope of the ECB's mandate.

That's why today is so interesting.  Not only is it informative for markets to ascertain the level of support they'll receive from the ECB, but it's also like this grand unveiling of Draghi's level of success at arm-twisting the Bundesbank.  That sort of quasi-progress would probably scare the "risk-off" crowd that's keeping interest rates so low, but we'll all be very surprised if the message gleaned today is one of Germany, in some way, acquiescing to something that falls outside the scope of their political and economic values.  It's very much a "watch and wait" sort of thing, and if anyone knows what's going to happen ahead of time, we have yet to hear a compelling argument for that (though it's very fashionable and trendy to be dismissive of the ECB's potency in crisis management).

The domestic data calendar is fairly light to boot, with only Jobless Claims, Factory Orders, and ISM New York showing up as somewhat interesting.  We don't anticipate that much, if any of that will matter next to the ongoing digestion of the ECB news during the morning hours.  Anything could happen.