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Ramsden gives little away on monpol in his speech

BOE
  • Ramsden's comments don't really give away a lot about his view for monpol going forward (it was only addressed in 2 paragraphs of the entire speech today).
  • The key paragraph is: "The sharp fallback in headline inflation to 4.0% in January, from 10.1% a year ago is undoubtedly encouraging. The restrictive stance of monetary policy increasingly weighed on activity through 2023, and, notwithstanding the ongoing uncertainties with the official data, has led to a loosening in the labour market. I support the more balanced outlook on risks to inflation set out in the MPC’s latest forecasts. Although services inflation and wages growth have fallen by somewhat more in recent months than we had expected last autumn, key indicators of inflation persistence remain elevated. In terms of my thinking about the future, I am looking for more evidence about how entrenched this persistence will be and therefore about how long the current level of Bank Rate will need to be maintained."
  • On the change in QT auction sizes this year (varying sizes across buckets): "This purely operational change in our approach seems to have been received well by the market, as reflected in feedback from market participants, and good participation in the re-sized auctions."
  • He doesn't really give any update on the BOE's view regarding the ultimate size of the balance sheet - saying that "We announced the launch of the Short Term Repo (STR) to supply reserves on demand at Bank Rate against gilt collateral on a weekly basis, to ensure that market interest rates remain aligned with Bank Rate. We expect usage of the full set of our liquidity facilities to rise as the level of reserves in the system falls as QT and TFSME unwind progress."

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