Will they follow the FED or BoC?
The last BoE meeting that Mr. Andy Haldane also will take part in that, we'll behold later today, 24 June 2021. Market participant wildly expecting no change in policies at this meeting.
BoE reduces the Gilt purchases to £3.4B/week in the May meeting, but the overall purchase program left unchanged at £875B, and it will be continued until the end of 2021.
For today's meeting, while market participants are pricing the rate hikes at the second quarter of 2022, it is still unclear that BoE will follow the ECB and FED or BoC. So will be mainly on the Committee's vote on its QE Gilt purchases. In the last meeting with the 1 Hawkish ballot to reduce the target stock of Gilts purchases by f 50bn from 1875bn from Mr. Haldane, advocates of Dovish policies won by 8:1. The rest of the Committee members voted for a hold policy. Even though the GDP growth rate for 2021 from 5 to 7.5%, this expectation considers Government Aid, so reducing the purchasing plan in 2021 is unlikely.
On the inflation front, the May forecast of BoE is that it will temporarily be rising above the target towards the year-end before returning around 2% of the BoE target in the medium term. So it means that tomorrow the focus will be on Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member's reaction to inflation rise. For rate hiking, in the last meeting, all 9 MPC members voted for holding the rates. For this meeting, we have to see the ratio of votes.
For now, we're looking for any signs for the first-rate hike in the first quarter of 2023. The overall expectation of inflation is likely to reach 2.5% by year-end but is expected to decline in mid-2022.
BoE meeting and GBP
With stronger USD, Cable fall under 1.4000, and even Wednesday's rebound could not help the pairing to trade above this critical level. Ahead of the BoE meeting, other essential factors like tensions with the EU on Northern Ireland Protocol and the latest delay on lifting lockdowns. However, the market was mostly waiting for bankers' decisions. Any Hawkish comment will support the Sterling, and holding the dovish policies will pressure Pound.