BRISTOL | Guest post by Tony Yates (Long and Variable) | That’s what George Osborne’s twitter feed would have you believe. And it was echoed by Andrew Sentance. Statements like these are at odds with modern monetary macro, and they are pretty irresponsible.
MADRID | The Corner | Euro area industrial production, the BoE Inflation Report and UK labour market data will be watched closely today. Barclays analysts expect euro area production to rise 0.7% m/m in September, partially offsetting August’s sharp drop. The Inflation Report is likely to shed light on recent BoE policy decisions, including possible downward revisions of its inflation and unemployment forecasts. UK consumer inflation fell to 1.2 per cent in September, a hefty 0.5 percentage point lower than the BoE expected just three months ago.
LONDON | By Víctor Jiménez | Raise the main interest rate? Certainly not. Or not yet, anyway. While the US economy is not showing clear signs of having overcome the assisted breathing phase (i.e. printing money or the recently wound up phase of quantitative easing that the Fed finished two weeks ago), the chances are that the Bank of England will keep the price of the pound at a very low level.
MADRID | The Corner | Don’t expect big changes in stock markets’ behaviour today: everyone is waiting for the main events of the week, that is, any move from the US Federal Reserve (FOMC meeting ends on Wednesday) and the Scotland referendum on Thursday. Just note that Germany is releasing ZEW index today, which gauges big investors and analysts’ confidence in the EU’s main economy. In the UK we’ll have consumer prices for August.
MADRID | The Corner | UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) grew by 1.9% in the year to June 2014, up from 1.5% in May, according to official data released on Tuesday, almost reaching the Bank of England’s 2% target and strenghtening the case for a rise in interest rates which have been held at a record low of 0.5%.