LIVE MARKETS-Euro, euro, on the wall... who's the 'best' president of them all?

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EURO, EURO, ON THE WALL... WHO'S THE 'BEST' PRESIDENT OF THEM ALL?

The markets have been ablaze with speculation in the last 24 hours or so over whether or not European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will step down before her term ends in October 2027. The ECB was quick to downplay the story - originally reported by the Financial Times on Wednesday. In a private message to her colleagues, Lagarde has said she would tell them first if she did plan to step down early, according to four sources that spoke to Reuters.

After an initial shiver, the euro has settled down, ticking marginally higher against the dollar to trade around $1.18, and edging up against other major currencies. The prospect of a new ECB chief hasn't provoked quite the same amount of reaction in the currency as the speculation over who might succeed Jerome Powell as head of the Federal Reserve did in the dollar and for good reason. The ECB's governing council is far larger than the Fed board and competing national interests can come into play, for starters.

Lagarde is the ECB's fourth president. Each has had to deal with at least one market crisis or bout of serious turbulence, from the dot-com bust, to the global financial crisis and the euro zone debt crisis, to COVID and now, to the ructions caused by the global rollout of AI and a far less predictable U.S. president in the White House.

As for which president has overseen the best performance in the euro, the honour goes to Jean-Claude Trichet, under whose presidency the currency rose 16%. Lagarde herself is in second place, with a gain of 7.1% in the euro since she took charge in 2019. In last place, is Mario Draghi - famous for his "whatever it takes" moment - under whose tenure, which spanned the sovereign debt crisis, the euro fell 17%.

(Amanda Cooper)

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