(Reuters) - Despite a rising threat of deflation, the European Central Bank probably won't announce more stimulus measures at Thursday's monetary policy meeting, according to euro money market traders polled by Reuters.
Plunging oil and commodity prices have raised fears of deflation, especially in the euro zone, where inflation fell back to September's five-year low in November. That makes looser monetary policy more likely. But none of the 17 traders polled expected a move at the last ECB meeting of 2014, on Thursday.
"Not this year. The ECB will be on a wait-and-watch approach," said a trader.
"They (the ECB) will take stock of what they have already announced and stick to their language of ready to do more, if needed. Although what else we should see before they think it is needed is not clear."
To bring inflation back to 2 percent, ECB chief Mario Draghi wants to restore the ECB's balance sheet to its March 2012 level of around 3 trillion euros, compared with 2 trillion euros (1.58 trillion pounds) now, which should increase demand by flooding markets with cash.
Eleven of 15 traders said the ECB would be able to meet the 3 trillion-euro goal over the next 12 to 18 months. The remaining four said it would not.
The ECB is offering banks long-term cheap loans and buying covered bonds and asset-backed securities. Despite German resistance, it may begin buying sovereign bonds next year.
It is expected to allot 101.5 billion euros at its weekly tender, less than the 114.3 billion euros maturing this week, the regular survey found.
The poll also showed banks are expected to repay 5.0 billion euros next week of the old crisis loans, slightly less than the 5.86 billion they will pay back this week.
(Reporting by Rahul Karunakar; Polling by Sarmista Sen and Kailash Bathija; Editing by Larry King)