(Bloomberg) -- It’s a close call, but Bank of England policymakers are likely to vote for the first interest rate cut since the start of the pandemic after inflationary pressures in the UK receded.
Investors last night placed a 57% chance on a quarter-point cut in the key rate to 5%, while most economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect a move. A decision will be announced at 12 p.m. Thursday in London.
Borrowing costs stuck at a 16-year high for almost a year have weighed on the economy, which is struggling to emerge from a shallow recession last year. Governor Andrew Bailey will make his first significant remarks at a press conference at 12:30 p.m., breaking a silence he’s maintained through an election campaign that started in the middle of May and culminated with a victory by Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on July 4.
The UK central bank will also release growth and inflation forecasts along with a sense of how it will assess the next adjustments to monetary policy.
Here’s what to watch:
Vote Split
The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee voted 7-2 to leave rates unchanged at the last meeting, with Swati Dhingra and Dave Ramsden voting for a cut. This time, most economists expect a 5-4 split in favor of a reduction.
Bailey could well join the majority after minutes of the meeting suggested the June decision for no change was “finely balanced” for about three people on the panel. Long-time hawks Catherine Mann and Jonathan Haskel are likely to keep voting for no change.
A big unknown comes from Deputy Governor Clare Lombardelli, who just took up her post and will vote for the first time.
Guidance
The BOE has signaled since February that it’s weighing when to cut rates. Since then, policymakers have focused on price pressures coming from the labor market, where the supply of workers is tight and pushing up wages, as well as signs of persistent pressures in services, especially hotels and restaurants that are trying to pass on spiraling costs to their customers.
Officials have kept an August “move on the table” by noting the meeting is an opportunity to assess inflation persistence and by acknowledging that June’s decision was “finely balanced,” according to BNP Paribas’ Matthew Swannel and Dani Stoilova.
MPC members are expected to emphasize more forward-looking indicators of prices that go beyond the headline inflation reading, which is now back at the 2% target. They also may say further cuts will depend on how the data evolves, noting their current forecast is for an increase in inflation later this year.
What Bloomberg Economics Says...
“If the MPC cuts, it will likely update its guidance to indicate that any further easing will be gradual and linked to progress on measures of inflation persistence. It will also avoid giving any hints about the timing of the next move in order to retain optionality.”
“Beyond August, we see a second move down in November and rates ending the year at 4.75%. Our year-end forecast for 2025 is 3.75%.”
—Dan Hanson and Ana Andrade. Click for the PREVIEW.
Inflation
Services inflation came in hotter than policy makers expected in June, even as headline CPI stayed put at the 2% target. Yet much of that upside surprise was due to hotel prices pushed up by Taylor Swift’s UK tour.
Looking at the MPC’s preferred measure of services inflation, which strips out some volatile items, and additionally removing accommodation, shows price pressures receded close to the MPC’s expectations.
“It’s a fair bet that this sort of chart will have been presented to officials ahead of the meeting,” said James Smith, developed markets economist at ING. “This more dovish interpretation of the recent CPI numbers is also supported by surveys that show firms are raising prices and wages much less rapidly.”
The bank is expected to tweak its inflation forecasts to reflect a stronger pound, rising natural gas prices and a drop in market rate expectations. While the outlook could be upgraded in the near term, some economists see a slight downgrade over the two-year horizon.
Growth
BOE officials pushed up their growth outlook for the second quarter of 2024 at the last meeting. Deutsche Bank expects yet another “big upgrade” to GDP projections in August as the UK’s economic rebound is overshooting expectations. That’s thanks to strong household spending and business investment.
“The questions now will be whether the Bank continues to see some level of spare capacity in its projections to still accommodate firming growth,” said Sanjay Raja, senior economist at Deutsche Bank. “This we think will bear important significance as a signaling tool around the MPC’s comfort levels with accelerating growth.”
Asset Sales
Investors will be closely reading the August minutes for a brief update on the bank’s asset sales plan under quantitative tightening. While the new annual program announcement is due in September, some economists expect the MPC to signal maintaining or even accelerating — instead of slowing down, the pace of QT from the current £100 billion a year.
--With assistance from Andrew Atkinson.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.