Bank of England Holds Rate Steady as Governor King Steps down

The Bank of England decided against pumping more stimulus into Britain’s fragile economy on Thursday, as policymakers await the arrival of new governor Mark Carney amid signs that a slow recovery may be taking hold.

The central bank made no statement alongside its widely- expected decision not to add to the 375 billion pounds of government bonds which it bought with newly-created money between March 2009 and October 2012.

It also left interest rates at their record low 0.5 percent, not taking the same path as the European Central Bank, which cut rates last week for the first time in 10 months.

The decision came hours after March industrial output data showed a stronger-than-expected rise in factory output and bolstered confidence in an initial estimate that the economy as a whole grew 0.3 percent in the first three months of 2013.

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