ECB is good starting position to deal with inflation shock, Schnabel says

BY Reuters | ECONOMIC | 09:36 AM EDT

WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank entered the current inflation shock in a strong position as the bloc managed to resolve many of its economic and financial imbalances over the past decade, ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said on Thursday.

The economy has grown increasingly resilient, imbalances have dissipated and sovereign spreads have narrowed, allowing the ECB to tame the last inflation shock with only a modest impact on growth, a positive omen for the current crisis, Schnabel said.

"It's really remarkable that this was possible without causing a recession or financial instability, and this is quite important also in the presence of the most recent shock, because this puts us in a relatively good starting position to deal with this shock," she told a Peterson Institute lecture. (Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Toby Chopra)

In general the bond market is volatile, and fixed income securities carry interest rate risk. (As interest rates rise, bond prices usually fall, and vice versa. This effect is usually more pronounced for longer-term securities.) Fixed income securities also carry inflation risk and credit and default risks for both issuers and counterparties. Unlike individual bonds, most bond funds do not have a maturity date, so avoiding losses caused by price volatility by holding them until maturity is not possible.

Lower-quality debt securities generally offer higher yields, but also involve greater risk of default or price changes due to potential changes in the credit quality of the issuer. Any fixed income security sold or redeemed prior to maturity may be subject to loss.

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