Bank of England holds interest rates steady after August cut

LONDON — The Bank of England on Thursday said it would hold interest rates steady following its initial cut in August, even after the U.S. Federal Reserve opted for a jumbo rate cut the day before.

The Monetary Policy Committee voted by 8 to 1 to hold, with the dissenting member voting for a 0.25 percentage point cut.

A “gradual approach” to monetary easing remained appropriate, with services inflation remaining “elevated,” the committee said. The U.K. economy, which has returned to growth but been sluggish this year, is expected to return to an underlying pace of around 0.3% per quarter in the second half, it added.

The committee is assessing a mixed bag of data, with headline inflation consistently coming in near to its 2% target but price rises in services — accounting for around 80% of the U.K. economy — ticking higher to 5.6% in August. Wage growth in the U.K. cooled to a more than two-year low over the three months to July, but remained relatively high at 5.1%.

The BOE confirmed expectations for a hold even after the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday kicked off its own rate cuts in the current cycle with a 50 basis point reduction. Many strategists had expected a smaller 25 basis point cut at the September meeting, despite market pricing through this week pointing to more than 50% probability of the more aggressive option.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a news conference the central bank was “trying to achieve a situation where we restore price stability without the kind of painful increase in unemployment that has come sometimes with this inflation.” Recent U.S. labor market data had sparked concerns about the extent of the slowdown in the world’s largest economy.

The British pound was bolstered by the Fed news, trading up 0.5% against the U.S. dollar at $1.327 at 11:15 a.m. London time Thursday. Global equity markets meanwhile rallied, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index 1.34% higher.

The Bank of England cut its key rate to 5% from 5.25% in August in a tight 5 to 4 vote, and was widely expected to hold them there until its next meeting in November .

Frederik Ducrozet, head of macroeconomic research at Pictet Wealth Management, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” that the Fed’s decision to cut by half a percentage point wouldn’t push the BOE into a September cut on its own.

However, applying the Fed’s reaction function — the factors guiding its decision-making on monetary policy — to the BOE would provide a “stronger case to cut” on Thursday, Ducrozet said, speaking shortly ahead of the decision.

“It’s not because inflation is high today, it’s not because the unemployment rate is still relatively low in the U.K., that you shouldn’t look forward, and if you add the same kind of pre-emptiveness of policy to the UK situation I think the case would be stronger,” Ducrozet said.

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