The resulting bond selloff and market mess prompted the ECB's chief economist Philip Lane to secretly call some of the largest asset managers to calm them that Lagarde had no idea what she was talking about and to stop selling.

Nine months on, investors have gone all-in on bets that the ECB boss has changed her mind, and is here "to close spreads" after all.

Ahead of the central bank's next policy meeting, the FT notes that spreads in the eurozone's periphery have been squeezed by relentless demand for riskier bonds. The buying helped push Portugal's 10-year yield below zero for the first time. Spain is not far behind, and Italy — the last big eurozone market to offer a significant positive yield over a decade — has seen its spread closing in on its lowest since the region's debt crisis a decade ago.

With the ECB expected to expand its €1.35tn emergency asset purchase program by (at least) another €500bn, investors are increasingly relaxed about holding peripheral bonds despite the explosion in debt levels driven by the pandemic.

Are they right? Courtesy of NewSquawk, here is a breakdown of what to expect:

ECB policy announcement due Thursday 10th December; rate decision at 12:45GMT/07:45EST, press conference 13:30GMT/08:30EST

PEPP and TLTRO set to be tweaked, rates, PSPP and tiering expected to be left untouched

The upcoming release will also be accompanied by the latest round of staff economic projections

OVERVIEW: After telegraphing in October that further stimulus would be unveiled at the upcoming meeting, the consensus looks for a €500bln addition to the PEPP programme and 6-month extension until December 2021 (a longer extension has been speculated by some), while a majority of economists expect no change to its PSPP. Elsewhere, market participants expect policymakers to tweak the parameters of the Bank's TLTROs. Rates are set to be left unchanged, whilst an adjustment to the tiering multiplier is not expected this time around. Accompanying economic projections are set to see a downgrade to the near-term inflation outlook, but greater focus could be placed on the initial 2023 forecast. For growth, any near-term optimism on vaccines could be tempered by how the ECB addresses the yet to-be passed recovery fund and disappointing Q4 2020 outturn.