Archive

September 17, 2025
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UK CPI Stickier For Longer

  • UK inflation data confirmed the substantial upwards drift in the consensus, worth 0.6pp since May and 1.1pp over the past year, while matching final forecasts for August.
  • The consensus has shifted further than usual over the past month. It now aligns with our hawkish forecast until April, when hope again dominates in dragging inflation down.
  • Although the MPC won’t be shocked by this outcome, the persistent excess in underlying inflation still seems set to keep it holding rates. We do not expect cuts to resume.

By Philip Rush

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 11, 2025
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ECB: Balanced In The Good Place

  • Staying in the ECB’s “good place” encouraged a neutral bias around its unanimous decision for no change, while being appropriately open to tackling future shocks.
  • Staff inflation forecasts still undershoot the target, with recent upside news seemingly postponing passthrough rather than trimming the extent into something like our view.
  • President Lagarde sounded relaxed about France’s spread widening, and the ECB did not discuss the TPI. We still expect no ECB easing against this, or further rate cuts.

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

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