Bank of England
Bank of England Policy Unchanged
March 4, 2010
To nobody’s surprise, the Monetary Policy Committee announced a decision to leave its bank rate at 0.5%, where such has been for the past year, and not to increase its asset purchase program beyond the Gbp 200 billion limit that was reached in January. Minutes of today’s meeting due March 17 will likely show another [...] More
Bank of England Preview: Stance to Remain Unchanged
March 3, 2010
At 12:00 GMT on Thursday, the Monetary Policy Committee is likely to announce a decision to leave the key Bank Rate at 0.5%, its level for the past twelve months and to retain a Gbp 200 billion cap on the asset buying program, which was exhausted by the end of January. Rhetoric by Bank officials, [...] More
Bank of England’s Dilemma
February 17, 2010
To extend its asset purchases or not to extend them, that was the question that consumed the Monetary Policy Committee, according to minutes from its February 3-4 meeting. In a “finely balanced” decision masked by the 9-0 unanimous vote to stop the asset purchase program for now, officials offered six reasons for leaving policy as [...] More
Bank of England Quarterly Inflation Report
February 10, 2010
On a day when the Fed released a testimonial statement of what Chairman Bernanke had planned to announce about how the policy stance will be reined in, the Bank of England’s published quarterly Inflation Report pointed to a considerably more delayed policy reversal in Britain. British monetary officials revised projected GDP growth in the year to [...] More
Bank of England Did Not Extend Asset Purchase Program at This Time
February 4, 2010
The Bank of England Kept the British Bank rate at 0.5%, its level for the past eleven months. Agreed to maintain the stock of asset purchases funded by central bank reserve creation unchanged at Gbp 200 billion. Such was last raised in November by Gbp 25 billion, and those operations were completed in January. Said that “further [asset] [...] More
Greek-Inspired Risk Aversion Hits All Markets
February 4, 2010
The dollar, yen and JGB yields are up. Stocks and commodities are lower. Markets await several central bank policy decisions and fret about long-term fiscal problems in Greece and other countries. Several pieces of weak data were reported overnight as well. The yen rose 0.3% against a dollar that otherwise shows gains of 1.6% against the [...] More
Bank of England Preview
February 3, 2010
The retention of a 0.5% British Bank Rate was never in doubt. Bank of England officials no doubt hoped for a stronger case than now exists against extending their Gbp 200 billion asset purchase plan. Most central banks have begun the shift away from ultra-easy monetary policy, some even raising key rates and many others [...] More
China and Greece Weigh on Investor Psychology
January 20, 2010
Markets continue to obsess about Greece’s fiscal problems. Stark of the ECB said that fiscal rules mustn’t be bent to accommodate Greece and stressed that the euro area economic recovery will be uneven and slow. The euro fell below $1.4200 and lost 0.9% against the dollar. The Swiss franc also fell 0.9%, while sterling is [...] More
Bank of England Policy Left Unchanged
January 7, 2010
The Bank of England’s policy announcement at 12:00 GMT today sprung no surprises. The Bank Rate remains at 0.5% where such has been since a 50-bp cut last March. The asset purchase program ceiling of Gbp 200 billion was not changed has one further month to get completed. A statement from the Monetary Policy Committee [...] More
Bank of England Preview: No Changes This Time
January 6, 2010
British monetary policy is on hold until at least February and possibly beyond midyear. The last base rate cut occurred in March 2009 and culminated 450 basis points of reduction from 5.0% to 0.5% squeezed into five months. Additional easing since then has been engineered via quantitative purchases of assets, mostly gilts, that will reach [...] More
