As the storm battering European banks’ shares rages on, the euro area’s economy is looking less resilient. Since the recovery from the long, double-dip recession began almost three years ago, the zone’s fastest quarterly growth rate has been just 0.5%, at the start of 2015. Figures published today show that GDP grew by only 0.3% in the fourth quarter, the same as in the third. Investors fretting about Italian banks will draw little comfort from the paltry 0.1% increase in Italy’s output. The euro area’s sluggish growth will intensify pressure on the European Central Bank to conjure a pre-Easter rabbit from the hat when policymakers meet on March 10th. But a favourite trick, pushing interest rates even further into negative territory, now looks less clever. Negative rates are squeezing banks’ profits, contributing to the sell-off—and indirectly hurting the economy, too.