Traders are sitting tight this morning as they wait for the Bank of England to announce an expected cut to just a fraction above zero later this year. At their September meeting the nine BoE’s nine rate-setters voted unanimously to keep the bank rate at 0.25 percent, the lowest in the BoE’s 322-year history. The BoE is also expected to express its belief that a further rate hike may be needed if the country is still struggling economically from the fallout of Brexit come November, when the committee meets again. Analysts are also predicting that the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will continue to support the emergency measures it put forth in August to buy 435 billion pounds of bonds and 10 billion pounds of corporate bonds.
It will also be a very busy day on the U.S. economic calendar as today is the last day in which data can confirm a possible interest rate hike next week. On today’s agenda in the United States is the August retail sales report, industrial production numbers and the weekly jobless claims report, followed by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve survey and the business inventories report.
Traders Are Nervous, Trading is Thin
Trader apprehension was already apparent during Thursday’s Asian session where stocks wavered during thin trading. Japan’s Nikkei .225 fell more than one percent to three-week lows while the MSCI index dipped only 0.1 percent. The euro remained steady at $1.1245 while the dollar slipped 0.1 percent against the yen to 102.345 after briefly crossing the 103.00 point on Wednesday.