Articles and Whitepapers

The £ 3mth LIBOR fix has been moving higher without any notion of change to BOE rate. As rates have been moving up generally, and there is always additional premium across the year-end turn, it is easy to overlook that higher credit risk is now appearing in the £ LIBOR fix

Petrol & Oil currently make up 35 parts per 1000 within the RPI according to the ONS, or 3.5% of the Index. The weighting within the CPI index is lower, nearer 22 parts per 1000 or 2.2% of the index

The Bank of England has raised interest rates above 0.5% for the first time since March 2009, although this is still the first-time rates have been set at 0.75%, base rates were cut from 1% to 0.5% as part of the ongoing emergency response to the financial crisis

The Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at its May meeting. Markets had largely written off any probability of an increase following the BOE Governor’s BBC interview in late April where he alluded to weaker Q1 growth and Brexit uncertainty delaying the prospect of higher interest rates

Economic Growth in the UK during Q1 has been quite disappointing, with the ONS advanced estimate showing activity barely changing in the first three months of the year relative to the end of 2017, with the ‘Beast from the East’ only partly to blame!