Survey Shows 40 percent of Economists Polled Expect BoE to Increase size of QE

Chances are rising that the Bank of England will decide to start buying assets again next week to support an economy teetering on the brink of a third recession in four years, a Reuters poll found on Thursday.

The poll of 64 economists, taken Feb 26-28, gave a median 40 percent probability the central bank would inject another wave of cash into the money supply next week, on top of the 375 billion pounds ($567.5 billion) of new money it has already pumped in.

That is higher than the 35 percent probability in a snap poll taken a week ago after minutes from the February meeting showed three of the nine Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members – including outgoing Governor Mervyn King – voted for 25 billion pounds of additional bond purchases.

Even if March is not the trigger, there is a 60 percent chance they will unleash a fresh wave of cash – known as quantitative easing (QE) – before the year is out, up from 51 percent in last week’s poll.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza