For markets, this week's ECB holds two questions. First, will there be a formal taper decision. Second, if there is no formal announcement to this effect (our base case is for a continuation of the bond buying program at an unchanged pace through late 2017), is the backdrop to the Governing Council sufficiently caustic that President Draghi in the press conference essentially signals that a taper will soon be coming. We think markets will treat either outcome with little distinction. EUR/$ would go up, perhaps substantially. As a result, we think markets will put more weight on the tapering signal, rather than any kind of program extension (which is subject to modification anyway). We think this is no time to taper, simply because of the challenging inflation dynamics in the Euro zone, in line with our European economics team's assessment A premature taper, which a decision to this effect at this meeting would certainly be, will only complicate the ECB's task of getting the Euro zone out of lowflation and fundamentally banishing deflation risk.