Push out rate hikes, but says he is confident in the eurozones recovery u. S. Equities stage a laterally after House Republicans give their stamp of approval to the tax overhaul, sending it to the senate ecb president mario draghi is still delivering the keynote address in frankfurt lets listen back in moving into positive territory in all major euro area economies. Demand for loans by firms, which at this time last year were still negative in several vulnerable countries, is now positive across the whole euro area the other trend is the growing resilience in the Financial Sector the total capital ratio of banks has increased by more than 170 basis points since early 2015 the return on equity has risen from 4. 4 at end of 2015 to 7. 1 at the start of this year, even as leverage ratios have declined all banks have benefited from the upward trend in returns and assets since the start of our Monetary Policy easing in 2014 though in some cases they were starting from low levels clearly thi