|

Breaking: BOE leaves monetary policy unchanged, GBP/USD picks up the bids near 1.3135

The Bank of England's (BOE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to leave the policy rate unchanged at 0.1% at its June policy meeting as expected. Furthermore, the BOE held the Quantitative Easing (QE) program unchanged £745 billion.

Follow our live coverage of the BOE event and the market reaction.

Market reaction

The GBP/USD pair refreshed intraday high to pierce 1.3143, up 0.24% on day, following the widely-anticipated rate announcement.

Related articles

BOE Quick Analysis: Three pound-positive on Super Thursday open door to new highs

GBP/USD moves back closer to multi-month tops, around 1.3165 region post-BoE

Key takeaways from the policy

Although recent developments suggest a less weak starting point for the Committee's latest projections, it is unclear how informative they are about how the economy will perform further out.

The outlook for the UK and global economies remains unusually uncertain.

Given the inherent uncertainties regarding the evolution of the pandemic, the MPC's medium-term projections are a less informative guide than usual.

Global activity has strengthened over recent months, although it generally remains below its level in 2019 Q4. 

UK GDP is expected to have been over 20% lower in 2020 Q2 than in 2019 Q4. 

Employment appears to have fallen since the Covid-19 outbreak, although this has been very significantly mitigated by the extensive take-up of support from temporary government schemes. 

The Committee will continue to monitor the situation closely and stands ready to adjust monetary policy accordingly to meet its remit. 

Author

More from FXStreet Team
Share:

Editor's Picks

EUR/USD recovers some early losses driven by rising energy prices amid US-Iran war

The EUR/USD pair claws back some of its early losses during the late Asian trading session on Monday, but is still 0.25% down to near 1.1780. Earlier in the day, the Euro declined sharply against the US Dollar as investors shifted to the safe-haven fleet amid the brutal war between Iran, Israel, and the United States, which broke out over the weekend.

GBP/USD targets 1.3500 barrier near moving averages

GBP/USD rebounds from the daily losses, trading around 1.3450 during the Asian hours on Monday. The technical analysis of the daily chart indicates an ongoing bearish bias, as the pair trades within a descending channel pattern.

Gold looks further north as Iran war boosts haven demand

Gold is taking a breather after the initial run to over one-month highs near $5,400, kicking off the new week with a bang. A global flight to safety theme, following the US-Israel joint attacks on Iran over the weekend, bolstered the demand for the traditional store of value, Gold.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple under pressure as key supports face breakdown risk

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple prices trade on the back foot at the start of this week on Monday, after extending losses in the previous week. BTC is on the brink of a breakdown, ETH is capped below key resistance, and XRP risks a crack of the trendline.

The market is paying for insurance, not apocalypse

As expected, this morning felt less like a Monday market open and more like a fire drill. Futures screens flickered red. S&P contracts down almost 1%. Nasdaq off 1.2%. Brent leaped 13% through $80. Gold rose 1.6% toward $5350 before paring some gains. The dollar is strutting mildly. The Swiss franc is quietly doing what it always does in a storm, catching some safe-haven flows.

Starknet unveils strkBTC, shielded Bitcoin transactions on Ethereum Layer 2

Starknet, the Ethereum Layer 2 network developed by StarkWare, today announced strkBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin asset that introduces optional shielding while preserving full DeFi composability.