Bank Of England Holds Rates With Warning Of A ‘Way To Go’ On Inflation

(Bloomberg) -- The Bank of England kept interest rates at a 15-year high, sticking with its message that borrowing costs will remain elevated for some time despite growing bets on a wave of cuts in 2024.

The UK central bank’s decision contrasted with the US Federal Reserve’s admission last night that reductions were on the agenda. The BOE reiterated its policy will be “sufficiently restrictive for sufficiently long” to curb inflation. Officials split along the same lines as in their previous meeting in November, with three still supporting a hike.

Governor Andrew Bailey said in a statement released alongside the decision that “there is still some way to go” in the fight to control inflation. The MPC repeated its guidance that it could hike again “if there were evidence of more persistent inflationary pressures,” with price growth still more than double the 2% target.

Bailey pushed back against growing expectations on markets that the BOE will pivot to rate cuts as soon as May.

“Markets have to form a view, they must do that of course,” he said in an interview with broadcasters following the BOE’s decision on Thursday. “At the moment, we are more cautious because we need to see those more persistent elements of inflation, which we see in things like services prices, turn in the right direction quite decisively.”

The MPC’s conclusion is the latest indication that the BOE will trail the Fed and European Central Bank in easing off on its monetary tightening. Britain still has the strongest inflation rate in the Group of Seven nations, with a smaller workforce than at the start of the pandemic and wage rises fanning upward pressure on prices.

“Markets were starting to smell a global pivot by central banks after the Fed shifted decidedly dovish last night,” said Matthew Landon, global market strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank. “The Bank of England didn’t quite follow suit.”

Markets priced in 1.25 percentage points of cuts in 2024 on Thursday for the first time, with the move to easier policy expected to begin in May. That shift was accelerated by a more dovish stance from Fed policymakers who projected an end to its rate hikes and more aggressive cuts in 2024.

The pound extended gains against the US dollar while gilt yields trimmed an earlier decline. Traders pared their bets on BOE rate cuts next year which had been fueled by the Fed’s dovish pivot late Wednesday. Investors now see around 118 basis points of monetary easing in the UK in 2024 compared to as much as 127 basis points before the BOE’s announcement.

The Monetary Policy Committee voted 6-3 to keep its key policy rate at 5.25% for the third consecutive meeting, according to minutes of the decision released Thursday. 

What Bloomberg Economics Says ...

“Sticky inflation is still a big problem but a decisive policy pivot from the Federal Reserve will probably give the BOE confidence to move a little earlier than we previously thought. As a result, we are making a small adjustment to our rate call, bringing forward the timing of the first cut to June from August. That change leaves the risks around the timing of the first move lower more balanced, in our view.”

—Dan Hanson and Ana Andrade, Bloomberg Economics. Click for the REACT.

“We’ve come a long way this year, and successive rate increases have helped bring inflation down from over 10% in January to 4.6% in October,” Bailey said. “But there is still some way to go. We’ll continue to watch the data closely, and take the decisions necessary to get inflation all the way back to 2%.”

Economists believe the UK economy is flirting with a recession as the cost-of-living crisis and aggressive monetary tightening by the BOE take their toll, a bleak prospect for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a general election expected to be held next year. The BOE now expects GDP to be flat in the fourth quarter of 2023 after the economy shrank in October, a downward revision from the 0.1% quarterly growth expected in its November forecasts.

“Yesterday’s worse than expected GDP result has to be setting alarm bells ringing among economists and policymakers,” said Martin McTague, chair of the Federation of Small Business. “The MPC needs to be responsive to indications that economic damage is setting in.”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said in a letter to Bailey that the bank continued to have his “full support” in its fight against inflation. The central bank said that Hunt’s Autumn Statement — which included a tax cut for workers and permanent full expensing for businesses — will boost the level of GDP by 0.25% over the coming years but also lift supply.

“We have turned a corner in our fight against inflation and real wages are rising, but we must keep driving inflation out of the economy to reach our 2% target,” Hunt said in a statement after the decision. “By cutting taxes for hard working people and businesses, and helping people into work, we are forecast to deliver the largest boost to potential GDP on record.”

While Bailey has previously insisted that it was too early to discuss a loosening in policy, investors ramped up bets on interest rate cuts in the run-up to Thursday’s meeting. Speculation over a pivot has built after sharp falls in inflation and growing evidence that the most aggressive rate-hiking cycle in decades is weighing on the economy. 

The members calling for higher rates were Catherine Mann, Megan Greene and Jonathan Haskel.  

The rate-setters said the near-term path for inflation was “somewhat lower than projected” in November and noted “downside news” in private sector wage growth. However, it warned against over-interpreting the wage data and said there were upside risks for pay, including the planned increase in the National Living Wage.

It also cautioned that it is “too early to conclude that services price inflation and pay growth were on a firmly downward path.” Policymakers are concerned about a tight labor market fueling persistent inflation with annual wage growth still running at above 7%.

The European Central Bank also kept interest rates on hold in its own policy decision on Thursday. It said that rates will be kept at “sufficiently restrictive levels for as long as necessary” with markets expecting it to pivot to cuts in the coming months.

The ECB’s Governing Council said it “will continue to follow a data-dependent approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction.”

--With assistance from Irina Anghel, Greg Ritchie and Eamon Akil Farhat.

(Updates with comment and context from the second paragraph.)

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