In an attempt to reassure markets that the ECB has more firepower should inflation remain low, Mr Draghi said in NY on Friday that the central bank had “the power to act, the determination to act and the commitment to act”.
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In metals, gold rose $7.40, or 0.7 percent, to $1,061.20 an ounce, silver rose seven cents to $14.08 an ounce and copper rose three cents to $2.06 a pound.
Chinese stock markets were also down with the Shanghai Composite index down 1.5% and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong falling by 1.1%.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 262 points, or 1.5 per cent, to 17,467 as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern.
United States futures pointed to a rise of around a third of one percent at the open, rebounding from Thursday’s 1.4 per cent slide, its biggest fall since the end of September.
At its December meeting Thursday, the European Central Bank underwhelmed the market.
On Thursday, the bank cut deposit rates further into negative territory – meaning lenders must pay to park cash with it and so look to loan more – and extended the length of its bond purchases.
At his traditional post-meeting news conference, ECB President Mario Draghi announced that the bank would also beef up its controversial bond purchase program, known as QE or quantitative easing.
Chris Weston of IG in Melbourne said the European Central Bank had “undoubtedly lost some credibility” by failing to deliver a “shock and awe” approach.
“The big story is the disappointment in the markets as the euro surged through 1.09 after expectations were that we would see more in terms of policy”, said James Hughes, chief market analyst at GKFX.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude was up 1.3 percent to $41.61 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The euro last traded at $1.0910 after shooting up 3.1 percent overnight, its biggest one-day gain since March 2009.
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Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen, speaking before Congress’s joint economic committee on Thursday, said the U.S. could be “close to the point at which we should be raising” rates. Yellen also said the economy needs to add fewer than 100,000 jobs a month to cover new entrants to the workforce, perhaps setting an implicit floor for jobs growth that policymakers want to see. Traders are keeping an eye on Friday’s OPEC meeting, though expectations were that the cartel would not cut its production levels, despite low prices. Brent crude, which is used to set prices for worldwide oils, climbed $1.53, or 3.6 per cent, to $44.01 a barrel in London.
