What to watch

It's been a relatively light day on the calendar today but there are still some important events to watch today.

• BOE's Catherine Mann is due to speak on the economy and monetary policy at OMFIF in a speech entitled "On returning inflation back to target". Mann has made a number of recent appearances but has focused on events outside of the UK. Today's speech will be significant as we have not really heard any MPC members give an update on their views since the December hike (other than some comments from Bailey at the Treasury Select Committee as he testified about the Financial Stability Report). With markets pricing in a 96% probability of a February hike, today's comments could be interesting. Indeed, its worth noting that this morning we have already seen poor consumer confidence and retail sales prints from the UK which are not helping sentiment.
• The other big event to watch today will be Russia-US relations. US Secretary of State Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov are due to meet today. However, expectations for a breakthrough at the meeting are not high ahead of Biden and NATO's written responses to the security guarantees. As a source told Izvestia (via TASS) "Real negotiations can begin only after Moscow receives a written answer. That’s when decisions will be made. So far, we have no such answer." However, there are likely to be a number of headlines today which will help determine risk sentiment. Concerns this morning have helped drive core FI and STIR futures higher.