Sterling rose again this morning and is set for its second biggest weekly rise in 2018 as imminent concerns over the outlook of emerging markets faded after the central bank upgraded growth forecasts at a policy meeting.
The BoE voted 9-0 to leave interest rates at 0.75 percent, a month after tightening policy for only the second time since the 2009 financial crisis and upgraded its forecast for third-quarter GDP growth, to 0.5 percent from 0.4 percent.
Weaker U.S. inflation data continued to hurt the dollar. The U.S. consumer price index, the government’s broadest inflation gauge, rose just 0.2 percent in August and less than the 0.3 percent projected by analysts in a Reuters poll.
Britain’s property market would crash, and mortgage rates would spiral in the event of a chaotic no-deal Brexit, with house prices falling 35 percent over three years, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney told ministers, The Times reported.
Carney, whose term of office was this week extended until January 2020 to help smooth the post-Brexit transition, told ministers a chaotic departure would lead to a plunge in sterling that would drive up inflation and interest rates.
In one note of optimism, Carney said that if May struck a Brexit deal on the basis of her Chequers proposals then the economy would outperform current forecasts because it would be better than the bank’s assumed outcome.