Liz Truss admits £45bn mini budget would have been scaled back if Bank of England warned on LDI crunch February 6, 2023 Former prime minister Liz Truss has today admitted her calamitous mini-budget could have scaled back had she known about the existence of LDIs. Truss admitted in an interview with Spectator TV that she “didn’t know the existence” of LDIs – liability driven investment vehicles – which sparked a near fire sale in the pension market [...]
Bank of England aggressive rate hikes send chill through UK construction economy February 6, 2023 The Bank of England’s ten successive interest rate rises have sent a chill through the UK’s construction economy, a closely watched survey out today shows. Potential home buyers are shunning purchases due to mortgage rates flying higher, prompting house builders to rein in spending. S&P Global and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply’s (CIPS) [...]
Bank of England will have to keep hiking rates to stop inflation hanging around, MPC’s Mann warns February 6, 2023 The Bank of England will have to hike interest rates again to stop the UK from being hit by a much stronger inflation surge than expected, one of its top rate setters has said today. Catherine Mann, an external member of the monetary policy committee (MPC) who has consistently backed steeper rate increases compared to [...]
Bank of England not poised to slash interest rates until middle of next year despite inflation cooling February 5, 2023 A year of interest rate pain is still in store for households, businesses and mortgagors even after Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and his team of economists have already lifted borrowing costs 10 times in a row. That is according to several top City economists, who do not expect interest rate cuts until early [...]
Digital pound coming this decade, unpublished Treasury and BoE report suggests February 5, 2023 The Bank of England (BoE) and the Treasury are convinced that a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is becoming increasingly necessary, an unpublished report seen by the Daily Telegraph suggests. “On the basis of our work to date, the Bank of England and HM Treasury judge that it is likely a digital pound will be [...]
Something for the weekend: This week’s five most-read stories on Cityam.com February 3, 2023 A Reddit user called fatmummy, interest rates, vaccines, the ECB and an ignominiouss end to government-funded Tech Nation – here’s what City A.M. readers most wanted to click on this week. One: How a saucepan broke the internet. If lockdown had you baking and prepping then this story would have piqued your interest. Houseproud, or [...]
‘Important we enguard against doing too much’ with rate rises, Bank of England’s top economist Pill warns February 3, 2023 The chief economist of the Bank of England has cautioned that it is important the Bank does not raise borrowing costs too high. Huw Pill’s warning came a day after the central bank hiked interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 4% but indicated it could slow down recent rate-hiking activity. He told Times Radio [...]
FTSE 100 close: Markets shrug off rate hike as JD Sports and BT lift index February 2, 2023 The FTSE 100 closed higher on Thursday, boosted by a strong performance from BT and JD Sports, as investors digested the latest interest rate decision from the Bank of England later today. Governor Andrew Bailey increased interest rates by 50bps to a post-financial crisis high of four per cent earlier today. Investors think the Bank [...]
Another interest rate hike to boost banks’ profits, but how long will the windfall last? February 2, 2023 Bank shares prices were mixed after the Bank of England raised interest rates by 50 basis points earlier today, as the pressure on banks to pass on higher interest rates to savers grew. The more domestically focused Lloyds and Natwest were trading 1.0 per cent and 0.6 per cent higher respectively. Barclays was up 0.8 [...]
Forget the IMF, the Bank of England are the real doomsters in this UK recession merry-go-round February 2, 2023 This week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) became public enemy number one for saying the UK will be the only rich economy to suffer a contraction in 2023. Even Russia, hobbled by sanctions to punish it for its invasion of Ukraine, is poised to squeeze out more growth than Britain this year, the lender of [...]