LONDON – World share markets slipped for a third straight day on Thursday, while bond markets steeled for European Central Bank signals later about a gradual withdrawal of its stimulus.

Europe’s regional STOXX 600 flirted with a six-week low in early trading.

Analysts anticipate the ECB will announce a token step towards reducing its emergency economic support later.

The central bank has pulled out all the stops to prop up the euro zone through the coronavirus pandemic, but with inflation at a 10-year high and unemployment falling and as normal life resumes, policymakers are now facing a balancing act.

“The market consensus now is that there will be some ECB tapering (withdrawal of stimulus),” Rabobank senior currency strategist, Jane Foley, said.

Investors had initially been spooked by the idea of tapering, but ECB officials have been working hard in recent weeks to reassure markets that the process will be very gradual.

A Reuters poll expects only a slight slowdown in money printing — to 70 billion euros a month from the current 80 billion euros — and this would remain a high pace by historical standards.

“I think now the conclusion is that this will be a pretty dovish Lagarde,” Foley added. “Which means the euro can’t get a lot of support,” even if there is a knee-jerk push higher.

Euro zone bond yields, which reflect governments’ borrowing costs and drive lending rates throughout financial markets, were holding near eight-week highs.

Germany’s 10-year yield, the benchmark for the bloc, was unchanged at -0.32 percent. Italy’s 10-year yield was up less than a basis point at 0.76 percent while the euro climbed for the first time in four days to be worth US$1.1827.

Back in the equity markets it wasn’t just about the ECB.

The UK’s FTSE 100 led Europe’s losses with a 1.1 percent drop. Low-cost airline easyJet tumbled nearly 14 percent as it tapped shareholders for 1.2 billion pounds (US$1.66 billion). The broader travel sector was down 1.8 percent.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares was last down 1 percent, which would be its worst daily performance since Aug 19, the last time markets decided they were worried about the US Federal Reserve tapering its massive asset purchase programme.

US stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis, were down 0.25 percent after falls from Apple and Facebook on Wednesday and after one of the Federal Reserve’s policymakers had urged the central bank to get on with its own stimulus wind-down plans.

“The global story is looking soft and it’s being hit by the Delta variant plus concern about potentially the Fed still moving towards a taper,” said Rob Carnell Asia head of research at ING. “It’s an unsettling combination of things.”

Korea’s Kopsi fell 1.5 percent, under pressure from regulatory scrutiny of local tech players. In Korea, fintech names such as Kakao Corp , which sank 7.2 percent, and Naver Corp, down 6.9 percent, were in the spotlight.

Australia lost nearly 2 percent after payrolls data showed a sharp drop in jobs in the first half of August.

It was calmer in the commodities markets. Oil prices were steady as production in the US Gulf of Mexico output following Hurricane Ida was slow to come back on line, while aluminium hit a 13-year high partly in response to a coup in Guinea, one of the world’s top bauxite producers.

“Political unrest in Guinea has significantly raised the risk of disruption.,” ANZ analysts said in a note.