- Bank of England increased the Bank Rate to 0.75% from 0.50% as expected but the unanimous 9-0 vote was a hawkish surprise.
- The BoE seems to be thinking very much like the Federal Reserve in the sense that it believes the tighter labour market will lead to higher wage growth and hence underlying inflation.
- We expect the BoE to continue hiking once a year with the next hike in May.
- We look for EUR/GBP to remain range bound near term with Brexit uncertainty expected to remain a key source of volatility.
BoE outlook: once a year hiking cycle
The Bank of England (BoE) increased the Bank Rate to 0.75% from 0.50% as expected, but the unanimous vote (9-0) was slightly surprising. The main reason is that the BoE thinks very much like the Federal Reserve, as it believes the strong growth and tighter labour market will lead to higher wage growth and hence underlying inflation pressure (Phillips curve thinking). Besides that, the BoE repeated that ‘ongoing tightening of monetary policy over the forecast period would be appropriate’ and that rate hikes ‘are likely to be at a gradual pace and to a limited extent’.
We had also looked forward to the BoE’s estimate of the natural rate of interest (the rate where monetary policy is neither expansionary nor contractionary). Unfortunately, we did not get much useful information here. We now know that the Bank of England expects it to rise to between 2-3% (nominal) in the long term but that it is lower in the short term, without saying how much lower. As the BoE has stated it will not start shrinking its balance sheet before the Bank Rate hits 1.5%, we guess it is around that level. Hence the Bank of England can hike around three times from the current level of 0.75% before monetary policy becomes neutral. This fits well with our view that the Bank of England will continue to hike around once a year. This of course also depends on the Brexit outcome where our base case (and the Bank of England’s) is still an orderly Brexit. Our base case is that the next hike will come in May. Also keep in mind that the Bank of England seems biased towards postponing a rate hike (as in May) if necessary, as it seems to think the costs of postponing a hike are smaller than hiking prematurely.
Looking at the projections, the Bank of England still thinks GDP growth will stay around 1.7%, slightly above potential GDP growth of 1.5%. As GDP growth exceeds potential, the BoE expects the unemployment rate to fall further and the projection has been revised down compared to the May report. This, in combination with the weaker GBP, has pushed up the inflation projection. We still think the BoE may be too optimistic on the inflation outlook, as we believe the impact of the GBP depreciation will fade faster than the BoE projects and that wage growth will not increase as much as BoE thinks either.
FX outlook: EUR/GBP range bound for now, but lower eventually
As we predicted, the rally in GBP in the wake of the highly anticipated BoE rate hike proved short-lived and EUR/GBP has bounced back above 0.89 again.
The UK yield curve has steepened substantially in recent weeks where e.g. the 1Y1Y UK swap yield has increased 15bp since mid-July. The market is now pricing that the Bank Rate will reach 1.25% in August 2021, which is fully consistent with our call of one hike per year. Given the uncertainty not least stemming from Brexit, we view the market’s pricing as hawkish, and UK yields as not likely to be a positive for GBP near term.
During the press conference, BoE Governor Marc Carney, said that the BoE sees signs that the risk premium on GBP and UK assets in general has increased somewhat recently. Our short-term financial model supports this view, with GBP having traded on the weak side vis-à-vis EUR and USD relative to the model’s estimates (see charts below).
As such, the risk premium on GBP is likely to remain elevated in the near term as Brexit negotiations move into an important period during the Autumn, and we look for EUR/GBP to remain range bound (most likely within 0.875-0.895) near term with Brexit uncertainty expected to remain the key source of volatility.
Longer term, we still expect EUR/GBP eventually to trade lower driven by Brexit clarifications and fundamental valuations. We target EUR/GBP at 0.8650 in 3M, 0.84 in 6M and 0.83 in 12M.
