MNI Gilt Week Ahead: First Leaders' Debate

• As we have entered the purdah period there will be no public BOE appearances until after the election (4^th July). This week does, however, see the first leaders’ debate on ITV with Sunak and Starmer going head to head. Our Political Risk team notes that it would be unusual to announce policy in a debate – and the manifestos are likely to be launched either late this week or next week. There is also unlikely to be too much market reaction to the debates unless there is a clear and concise victory for Sunak, given the lead that Labour continues to hold in the polls.
• With a dearth of policy comments, the election and the higher-than-expected April CPI, near-term data is likely to be left to impact further out the curve unless we were to see a large downside surprise to the May CPI data. This week’s highlights include the final PMI prints (to which the manufacturing print has seen little revision), the Decision Maker Panel data and BRC retail sales for May. Next week we receive labour market and monthly activity (including April GDP) data while May’s CPI data is due for release on Wednesday 19 June (the day before the MPC decision is released, but the MPC will receive the data on Monday morning).
• STR usage continues to incrementally increase, with another record takeup posted on Thursday, we will continue to monitor this but we still think we are some way from an equilibrium balance sheet.

GiltWeekAhead20240603.pdf