Bank of England holds rates, expects inflation to top 4%

Today the Bank of England held interest rates at 0.1% whilst stating they expect inflation to run high at around 4% over the winter period, exacerbated by elevated natural gas prices, worker shortages and global supply chain issues. They also said they intend to maintain the current level of bond purchases. There was, however, an increasing number on the Monetary Policy Committee that are calling for the beginning of tapering of bond purchases showing that pressure will be growing for action to be taken to reduce this in the coming months, much in line with how the US Federal Reserve has been signalling. UK equities were essentially flat on the news, while Sterling strengthened on the news as expectations of higher rates in the near-to-medium term increased, pushing the currency-sensitive large cap FTSE 100 index down marginally. UK government debt fell to its lowest in about 4 months.