Why Europe’s U-turn has panicked investors

In a surprise U-turn, the ECB has decided not to raise interest rates, and will instead spend money propping up Europe's dodgy banks. John Stepek explains why that's rattled investors.

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Mario Draghi of the ECB: the toughest job in central banking
(Image credit: 2019 Getty Images)

Mario Draghi is currently the head of the European Central Bank (ECB). Of all the world's central bankers, I think it's fair to say that he's had by far the toughest job during his time in charge.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.