Archive

September 16, 2025
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UK Jobs Find Their Floor

  • Stability in unemployment at 4.66%, while payrolls only marginally decline, suggests the labour market has found its floor before disinflationary pressures accumulate.
  • A narrative-breaking improvement could occur next month. Tax rises structurally explain the scale of the previous shock, with weakness seemingly not going beyond that.
  • Excess supply is needed to break wage growth to a target-consistent trend. Without that, the MPC should hold rates before potentially reversing by raising them in 2026.

By Philip Rush

September 10, 2025
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BoE QT: Pruning A Bad Policy

  • The BoE’s annual Quantitative Tightening announcement in September should see it prune the targeted size, we expect by £20bn to £80bn, concentrated in the long-end.
  • Fewer maturities in the year ahead would otherwise put too much pressure on active sales into a market that lacks appetite, especially with LDI demand disappearing.
  • Pruning the size and duration delays costs crystallising by several billion a year, which the Chancellor will welcome, yet QT’s poor design remains an expensive fiscal disaster.

By Philip Rush

September 04, 2025
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BoE Survey Says Inflation Persists

  • CFOs are telling the BoE that they plan to keep raising prices by more than 3% in 2026. The BoE should take notice, as this survey’s previous warnings have proven accurate.
  • Expected increases reflect the passthrough of further wage increases beyond a pace consistent with the target. They exceed even our already hawkish forecasts.
  • The BoE is unlikely to realise the sharp drop in wage growth it expects by year's end, without a shock to break the current regime, bolstering our call for no more rate cuts.

By Philip Rush

September 03, 2025
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Cutting After Pauses

  • The BoE and Fed rarely resume cutting cycles after a pause, yet the Fed seems set to break its hold with a cut just as the BoE and ECB enter their own pauses.
  • 2002-03 is the best historical parallel for the Fed, which signals potential cuts should be shallow and are likely to be reversed. Politics is no match for the fundamental need.
  • Persistently excessive UK pressures should prevent the BoE from cutting in November or beyond, with a quarterly pause historically unlikely to resolve in another rate cut.

By Philip Rush

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