A range of central bankers and board members have been on the wires this week pushing back against what they see as elevated interest rate cut forecasts. While they may have been partially successful in dampening these expectations, a series of global rate cuts will happen this year, the question being, when will they start?

This Thursday’s ECB meeting will likely be too soon for ECB President Christine Lagarde to start laying out a timetable for the market to follow, with the March 7th meeting probably the very earliest that the central bank will give any strong guidance.

Nxt week also sees the latest German and Euro Area PMIs, the German Ifo business report, and German GFK consumer confidence. With the German economy still in the doldrums, all of these reports will need to be watched to get a better understanding of the state of the Eurozone’s largest economy.