ECB Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf said on Friday that the European Central Bank needs to move quickly on policy to stay ahead of inflationary pressures, with price rises becoming more broad-based. He added that inaction would be a policy error, according to the remarks carried during European trading.
Markets showed limited response. During European hours, EUR/USD was described as being driven by the US Dollar rather than ECB commentary, and the pair was down 0.15% at about 1.1560. The ECB, headquartered in Frankfurt, sets Eurozone monetary policy with a price-stability mandate of around 2% inflation, primarily via interest rates. The Governing Council meets eight times a year and includes the heads of national central banks plus six permanent members, among them President Christine Lagarde. In extreme conditions it may deploy quantitative easing, used during 2009-11, again in 2015, and during the covid pandemic, while quantitative tightening reverses QE by halting new bond purchases and ceasing reinvestment of maturing principal.
Hawkish Signals and Market Reaction
We are seeing hawkish comments from within the ECB, suggesting a need to act quickly before inflation accelerates further. The latest inflation data for the Eurozone in May 2026 showed a concerning rise to 2.7%, ticking up from 2.5% the month prior. This challenges the market’s view that the ECB would continue its cautious rate-cutting cycle.
Given these signals, we believe the market is underpricing the risk of a pause or even a reversal in ECB policy later this year. Interest rate derivatives, which currently point to at least one more rate cut by year-end, look mispriced. We are therefore adjusting our positions in Euribor futures to reflect a higher probability that the current 3.25% deposit rate will be the floor for now.
Volatility Strategies and Policy Implications
This growing divergence between market pricing and central bank rhetoric is likely to increase currency volatility. We are looking at the options market, where implied volatility for EUR/USD has been relatively low. We see an opportunity to buy volatility, perhaps through straddles, positioning for a sharp move in the euro from its current level of around 1.0850.
Historically, central banks that fall behind the curve on inflation are forced to act more aggressively later. We only need to look back to the 2021-2022 period when the “transitory” inflation narrative led to a delayed but very sharp hiking cycle. We should not dismiss the possibility of the ECB making a similar pivot if data continues to surprise to the upside.
Therefore, in the coming weeks, we are positioning for a stronger euro by buying out-of-the-money EUR/USD call options with expirations in the third quarter. This provides a low-cost way to profit if the ECB is forced to adopt a more hawkish stance. The risk of doing nothing in the face of rising inflation is becoming too great to ignore.
