{"id":3155,"date":"2011-02-03T16:16:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T16:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=3155"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:49:11","slug":"february-mpc-vote-could-be-tight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=3155","title":{"rendered":"February MPC vote could be tight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The February MPC vote is on a knife-edge, according to an “MPC-ometer” model designed to predict policy decisions based on incoming economic and financial information. The model suggests a 4-4-1 split (i.e. four votes to hike offset by Adam Posen’s call for more QE), leaving the hawks just short of majority.<\/p>\n

The MPC-ometer foresaw support for long-standing hawk Andrew Sentance at the January meeting – see previous post<\/a>. Spencer Dale and Paul Tucker are plausible additions to the Sentance-Weale axis this month.<\/p>\n

Most economists assume that a rate hike is still distant following news of a 0.5% fall in GDP in the fourth quarter and a defiantly-dovish speech by Bank of England Governor Mervyn King. The median forecast is for a quarter-point rise in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the monthly Reuters poll.<\/p>\n

The MPC is likely to discount the snow-affected headline GDP result but place weight on the ONS assessment of a “flattish” underlying performance – still notably weaker than expected. The MPC-ometer, however, judges that this negative surprise will be more than offset by a further surge in consumer and business price expectations in January as well as solid survey activity indicators and strong financial markets.<\/p>\n

Analysts may have been bamboozled by Mr King’s speech, which is not necessarily reflective of the balance of opinion on the Committee.<\/p>\n

If the model forecast is correct, the hawkish camp will be well-positioned for a rematch in March, possibly armed with further data suggesting a strong GDP bounce-back in the first quarter.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The February MPC vote is on a knife-edge, according to an “MPC-ometer” model designed to predict policy decisions based on incoming economic and financial information. The model suggests a 4-4-1 split (i.e. four votes to hike offset by Adam Posen’s call for more QE), leaving the hawks just short of majority. The MPC-ometer foresaw support […]<\/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-3155","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\/3155","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=3155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5464,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3155\/revisions\/5464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}