By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – The Bank of England voted to hike the Bank Rate by 15 basis points to 0.25%. The policy-setting Monetary Policy Committee voted by a majority of 8-1 to increase interest rates. Silvana Tenreyro voted against the proposition, preferring to maintain the interest rate at 0.1%. Most of the analysts surveyed had expected the central bank to keep the interest rate unchanged at 0.1%.
At its November meeting, the Bank of England said that if incoming data was broadly in line with expectations then it would be necessary to over the coming months to hike interest rates in order to return inflation to the 2.0% target sustainably. The Committee {{0|now}} judges that those conditions have been met.
“Recent economic developments suggest that these conditions have been met,” the Bank of England said. “The labour market is tight and has continued to tighten, and there are some signs of greater persistence in domestic cost and price pressures.”
The increase in CPI to 5.1% in November, and a further decline in the unemployment rate appears to have forced the central bank's hand.
"The rate rise to 0.25% which increases the cost of borrowing, is aimed at dampening down demand and does risk sending already weak sectors further off course," said Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HRGV) Senior Investment and Markets Analyst Susannah Streeter. "But policymakers clearly see rampant inflation as an even more treacherous tide to deal with, with the CPI reading this week showing prices are already accelerating at levels not predicted until next Spring. Instead of battening down the hatches and waiting for the latest covid storm to subside, they are taking action now to prevent an even sharper spiralling upwards of prices."
Omicron
Since the November meeting, the Omicron COVID variant has surfaced. The Bank of England ack{{0|now}}ledged the new variant and highlighted that it is spreading rapidly within the United Kingdom but said it was unclear how this might impact medium-term inflationary pressures.
“Although the Omicron variant is likely to weigh on near-term activity, its impact on medium-term inflationary pressures is unclear at this stage,” the Committee said.
Market Reaction
In an immediate reaction to the unexpected rate hike, GBP/USD jumped 0.8% to 1.3368 and EUR/GBP dropped 0.6% to 0.8456.
The United Kingdom 10-Year yield rose 7 basis points to 0.80%.
Banking names were particularly strong following the interest rate hike with Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY), Barclays (LON:BARC), Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) and Natwest (LON:NWG) all trading higher by over 3%.
Outlook for future policy
The MPC said they will review developments, including emerging evidence on the implications for the economy from the Omicron variant, as part of its forthcoming forecast round ahead of the February monetary policy report. On inflation, the central bank said risks to the outlook are two-sided.
“The Committee continues to judge that there are two-sided risks around the inflation outlook in the medium term, but that some modest tightening of monetary policy over the forecast period is likely to be necessary to meet the 2% inflation target sustainably,” the central bank said.