European and North American stockmarkets responded positively yesterday evening to ECB President Mario Draghi’s comments that the bank would expand its current €1.1tn quantitative easing programme and cut the deposit rate at which it lends to retail banks, should the slowdown in emerging markets threaten the eurozone’s economic recovery.

The euro fell by 1.7% against the dollar to $1.11.5 while the price of European government bonds dropped to their lowest levels since the Spring.

Share values on Wall Street were further boosted by strong quarterly earnings reports from three technology industry giants, Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

Microsoft’s shares rose by close to 10% in after-hours trading to just under $53, their highest levels in 15 years, boosted by growing demand for its cloud-based products and better than expected sales of Windows 10 software to computer makers.

Google’s new parent company, Alphabet reported a near 50% jump in third quarter profits compared to the same period last year.