Forex Trading Preview – Carney to fire up the BOE can machine

It’s the BOE’s turn to announce its latest monetary policy stance 21 March 2019

A pretty quick BOE preview because I don’t think there’s going to be much coming from them.

Expect

Largely a repeat of the last meeting and inflation report
Focus is on risks like trade, Brexit, China
Inflation expected to soften in the near-term then pick up
Rates can move either way
Jobs market doing well, record low unemployment, wages holding up well
Consumer spending picked up (today’s retails report)

Unexpected

Increased talk about a higher possibility of a no-deal Brexit, which might lead to increased chatter of easier policy
Additional comment on an extension bringing further uncertainty (if there’s not been an agreement and the extension is procedural)
A definitive change to the main current position of the BOE, which is;

The Committee judges that, were the economy to develop broadly in line with its Inflation Report projections, an ongoing tightening of monetary policy over the forecast period, at a gradual pace and to a limited extent, would be appropriate to return inflation sustainably to the 2% target at a conventional horizon.

On the whole, I’m just expecting the usual can kick until after Brexit. But, that’s one point I want to mention. Should (big if) May get a deal passed before next Friday, this would be the last meeting before then and the next would be in a whole new world. It would mean the BOE switching to greater focus on the economy rather than brushing it under the Brexit rug. That’s something for the future though.

For GBP, outside of any minor algo moves on any language changes or repetitions, we’ll stick to moves on whatever’s going on in Brexit.

There’s no presser today, just the announcement, statement and minutes. Fire up the machine!