Bank of England Punts

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England this morning announced that it will leave its policy lending rate at 0.5% and that it will continue its asset purchase program at the current level of £375 billion (about $604 billion).

The committee expects the asset purchase program to be completed next month, but did say that "the scale of the programme will be kept under review." The bank is happy to wait to see how the economy fares before raising the limit again. In July the bank added £80 billion to its original purchase plan.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will be announcing its policy decisions later this morning. The ECB is expected to leave its interest rate at a record low of 0.75%. More important than the interest rate, however, will be any comments by ECB President Mario Draghi related to the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) policy he announced several weeks ago.

Paul Ausick

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