Bank of England Stands By Interest Rates & Asset Purchases

The Bank of England has voted to decide to leave its key short-term lending rate unchanged at 0.5%.  The move was widely expected to remain unchanged, and it also follows a similar action announced by the European Central Bank of Wednesday of this week.  The rate has now stood at 0.5% for three-years and easing further from here is most likely to resemble the quantitative easing efforts of the U.S. Federal Reserve.  England is not suffering from the same magnitude of the woes out of the lands of the PIIGS and the European Union, but it is far from immune from those woes at the same time.

What is more important than the rate decision is that the Bank of England has said it plans to maintain its 325 billion pound asset program that come to more than $500 billion if you translate the figure to dollars.  The Bank also noted that it plans to keep the size of this program under review.  It may be a disappointment to some investors that this was not grown in size.

Another day, another Euro, another Pound, and another Dollar…

JON C. OGG