The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane crossed the wires in the last hour and downplayed the possibility of negative rates in the short-term.
Key quotes:
- None of the conditions for negative rates has been satisfied.
- Work on negative rates is likely to take months.
- Any decision on negative rates would depend on cost-benefit analysis.
- BoE is committed to keeping borrowing costs at extraordinarily low levels.
- The economy has recovered faster than anyone expected.
- Positive news has received less attention than it deserves.
- Overly pessimistic narrative risks becoming self-fulfilling.
The comments did little to impress the GBP bulls, with the GBP/USD pair hovering near the lower end of its daily trading range, just above the 1.2800 round-figure mark.