Meet the front-runners to replace Lagarde - POLITICO.eu

Politico has profiled the leading candidates being considered to succeed Christine Lagarde as President of the European Central Bank. The succession question matters for markets because the ECB presidency shapes the policy reaction function of the Governing Council, which in turn determines the path of euro area policy rates and the pricing of the euro yield curve. Traders typically assess candidates by their perceived hawkish or dovish leanings on inflation and their stance on balance-sheet tools, since these signals feed into the rate differential between the euro and the dollar and into the relative pricing of French, Italian, and German sovereign bonds. The euro, euro-area bank equities, and the Bund-BTP spread are the assets most exposed to shifts in perceived ECB credibility or policy continuity. The next concrete catalyst to watch is any official nomination process timeline from the European Council, alongside the ECB's upcoming monetary policy meeting and inflation prints that will indicate how much latitude a new president would inherit.

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