{"id":3082,"date":"2010-10-06T10:40:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T10:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=3082"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:49:07","slug":"uk-mpc-preview-surprisingly-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=3082","title":{"rendered":"UK MPC preview: surprisingly close?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is an outside chance that the MPC will surprise markets with a further slug of QE tomorrow:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>The &#8220;MPC-ometer&#8221; &ndash; a statistical model designed to predict the monthly decision based on incoming economic and financial data &ndash; has a slight easing bias, reflecting recent weakness in business and consumer surveys and low average earnings growth. The latest reading is consistent with a further &pound;25 billion of asset purchases. (The model calibrates this to be equivalent to an 8 basis point cut in Bank rate.)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Eight of the nine members of the <em>Sunday Times<\/em> Shadow MPC favour more QE (although two of these individuals, bizarrely, also voted for a half-point rate hike this month). The Shadow Commitee has often mirrored MPC thinking.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Adam Posen&#8217;s decision to come out for more QE last week just ahead of the start of the October deliberations suggests that he is confident of support from other&nbsp;MPC members and wanted to exert pressure on waverers.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The key reason for expecting the MPC to hold back is that short-term inflation prospects have deteriorated further &ndash; a combination of high VAT pass-through, rising food and gas costs and renewed upward pressure on petrol prices could push the headline CPI rate up towards 4% over coming months. This increases the risk that more QE would boost inflationary expectations, a consideration that may weigh with the majority.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing the recent run of poor inflation news, the annual rates of increase of the BRC food and non-food shop price indices firmed in September &ndash; the first chart shows the relationship with the corresponding CPI components. Higher wholesale petrol costs and the October hike in fuel duty, meanwhile, suggest a rise in the average price of a litre of unleaded back towards &pound;1.20 &ndash; second chart.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"full-image-block ssNonEditable\"><span><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 680px;\" src=\"\/storage\/chart1_06-10-2010.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1286363024298\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span>&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span><br \/><span class=\"full-image-block ssNonEditable\"><span><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 680px;\" src=\"\/storage\/uupppl_2101006.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1286383442499\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is an outside chance that the MPC will surprise markets with a further slug of QE tomorrow: The &#8220;MPC-ometer&#8221; &ndash; a statistical model designed to predict the monthly decision based on incoming economic and financial data &ndash; has a slight easing bias, reflecting recent weakness in business and consumer surveys and low average earnings [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money-moves-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5391,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3082\/revisions\/5391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}