BOE Preview: Focus to be on how many rate setters vote to end-QE early – BofA

Analysts at Bank of America Global Research (BofA) offer their expectations from 'Super Thursday’s' Bank of England (BOE) monetary policy meeting.

Key quotes

“The Bank of England (BoE) doesn't provide guidance anymore, so we do not expect any clear signals from this week's BoE policy meeting.” 

“The BoE's inflation forecast is the best signal we will get. We expect the BoE to raise near-term inflation a lot but medium-term inflation only little.” 

“The story would be, we think, inflation is mostly transitory so the modest rate hikes priced by the market should deliver 2% inflation in the medium term.”

“In the absence of changes in guidance to watch for, we suspect market focus will be on how many rate-setters vote to end-QE early - QE purchases are currently scheduled to run until year-end - and whether the BoE publishes its policy sequencing review, which will explain when Quantitative Tightening (QT) starts.” 

“We expect a 6-2 vote in favor of continuing QE purchases as scheduled. The bar for a hawkish BoE surprise seems high.”