Draghi's silence puts numbers in spotlight ahead of ECB meeting

Zurich

MARIO Draghi is letting the numbers do the talking.

After five weeks of silence, the European Central Bank president is leaving it largely to a raft of economic data to fine-tune policy expectations ahead of the Governing Council's next meeting on Sept 8. Reports covering inflation to business confidence and unemployment in the coming days may signal whether more stimulus is needed to sustain the recovery and revive price growth amid potential fallout from Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

Momentum in the 19-nation euro area has so far shown few signs of losing pace, and economists at both JPMorgan Chase & Co and Danske Bank A/S pushed back proj…