The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee will release the minutes of the August meeting Wednesday morning in the UK (scheduled at 0430GMT)
- Of interest will be if there any members voted for a rate hike (which would be the first hike in the Bank Rate since it reached its current record low).
- A dissent would be the first since Mark Carney became governor of the BoE in July last year
- Also watched will be evidence of increasing hawkishness (or not). It seems likely that any hawkishness will be mild, though if its strong it could be a positive for a higher GBP. Talk of a November hike has diminished, but is still around and hawk comments could rekindle it. Especially after Carney comments reported on the weekend (UPDATED: BoE Carney – Says he would not wait for real wages to turn positive before raising interest rates)
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Added: If you want a much more detailed discussion of what to watch for in the Minutes, check this out from MNI:
The Governor has already laid the ground for notable dissent in tomorrow’s minutes. Speaking following the publication of the QIR last week, Carney used central bank speak to acknowledge splits on the MPC, using a variant of the old “reasonable people can disagree” line deployed by his predecessor Mervyn King,
“In terms about the judgements about when to raise interest rates and the role that developments in the labour market and developments in productivity play in that, there is a lot of uncertainty about it,” Carney said.
With a record pace of jobs growth and unprecedented weakness in wages “Reasonable people are going to take reasonable judgements about those, particularly as the degree is of slack is increasingly used up and that is what you would expect from a committee,” he said.
