ECB SMA (Oct): Median Deposit Rate by year-end at 2.75%

ECB SMA (Oct): Median Deposit Rate by year-end at 2.75%.

The ECB's Survey of Monetary Analysts sits in the second tier of central bank surveys: less market-moving than the staff projections or the accounts, but useful as a read on where the sell-side and buyside median sees the terminal point of the current easing cycle. A year-end deposit rate median of 2.75% implies further cuts priced beyond the prevailing level, and the operative question is how that median sits against the curve, since the SMA tends to lag rather than lead forward pricing and is best read as a validation check on the path already embedded in ESTR forwards. Episodes of this kind have tended to matter most when the survey median diverges from market pricing, producing a modest front-end repricing toward one or the other; when the two are aligned the print passes without consequence. Worth distinguishing is the dispersion around the median versus the median itself, since a tightening or widening spread of analyst views has historically been the more informative signal about conviction in the easing path. The follow-ons are the next ECB speakers and the accounts, which reveal whether the Governing Council's own centre of gravity matches the analyst consensus the survey captures.