Investors will be closely watching this week’s monetary policy meetings from the European Central bank which is expected to meet this Thursday and the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting that is due to be held on Friday.

No changes are expected with both the central banks expected to hold the key interest rates and the respective quantitative easing programs unchanged at this week’s meeting.

For the Bank of Japan, investors will be looking for any hawkish rhetoric coming out.

Speculation is rife that the Bank of Japan will start to scale back on its QE purchase program which was launched to end decades of deflation.

However, there could be some dovish surprise from the central bank which could keep the market speculation in check.

The European central bank is expected to remain on the sidelines with the ECB President Mario Draghi likely to maintain a neutral tone.

There is increasing speculation that the central bank could potentially announce further tapering to its QE program at the June monetary policy meeting.

The current pace of QE purchases at 30 billion euro per month is expected to end in September this year.