New BoE Governor Mark Carney surprised markets today as he made his 1st move on British monetary policy. Instead of the traditional silence on monetary policy hold, Carney not only made comments but gave a full statement to introduce the markets to forward guidance.
At its meeting today, the Committee noted that the incoming data over the past couple of months had been broadly consistent with the central outlook for output growth and inflation contained in the May Report. The significant upward movement in market interest rates would, however, weigh on that outlook; in the Committee’s view, the implied rise in the expected future path of Bank Rate was not warranted by the recent developments in the domestic economy.
The latest remit letter to the MPC from the Chancellor had requested that the Committee provide an assessment, alongside its August Inflation Report, of the case for adopting some form of forward guidance, including the possible use of intermediate thresholds. This analysis would have an important bearing on the Committee’s policy discussions in August.
Not only has Carney told the market not to expect interest rate rises, he also telegraphed a possible move in policy as soon as next month. And don’t expect positive economic data to stop them either. This make the August BoE meeting even more important and all eyes have already moved towards expectations for it. We can see that already in today’s price action. Pairs that have enjoyed breakouts like the $GBPAUD, $GBPNZD, and $GBPCAD are seeing long overdue corrections. The $GBPUSD remains entrenched in its bear trend and threatens to break down to new lows. A breakout in the $EURGBP seems imminent.
But US markets are on holiday today so the reaction has actually been muted if you can believe it. Expect the real fireworks when US traders return to all this forward guidance (the ECB is announced forward guidance today as well) and the US NFP release. Happy 4th!
Mentioned above:
- BOE statement sends a strong warning (Forex Live)
- Will Carney Surprise Us? (FMFX)
- To sum up… (FxBriefs)
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