Our next trip to central bank fairy land takes us to the Old Lady and the MPC

The market was left rather disappointed by Mr Carney's last major outing at the last MPC meeting and inflation report. He managed to send the pound lower by around 400 pips over the meeting and the following day, a move we've had little chance to recover from

And so we swing by Threadneedle Street in the heart of the City to get the latest musings on the fortunes of UK monetary policy

The easy stuff first

There's going to be no change to interest rates. If they do change them I'll buy a Forexlive t-shirt to the first person who posts the comment "Littlestone you numpty" after any interest rate change announcement

Birds of a feather...

It's very hard to see any change in the vote patterns. The economic data has not been impressive and certainly no more impressive than the last meeting. There's hasn't been anything that is likely to see anyone else plumping for hikes. In fact, there's probably more chance of seeing the lone hawk, Ian McCafferty swinging back to unchanged than seeing anyone join him in voting for a hike

Carney's Christmas message

This part of the show might be where we get some action. The minutes will be the MPC's last chance to put a message across this year, and potentially set us up for next year. Aside from super dove Andy Haldane, the rest all see the next move in rates as up. His nibs himself has also remarked that the market is way off with its expectations of when that will be. Last month he was also called out over his remark earlier in the year that "a hike would be in sharper focus around the turn of the year". He swerved the question by saying that was a personal view and that it's more important that around two thirds of people expect rates to go up in the next 12 months. Very flaky if you ask me

The risk of the message is balanced. The MPC could instil a more hawkish message, particularly on the basis that they will be potentially acting after the Fed. Of course they won't explicitly say that but they are just as desperate to get hikes off the ground as their yank friends and so may use this as a chance to reel in some of the markets expectations

Alternatively, they may keep the subtle dovish tone just to keep the pound on the soft side through to the New Year

There are still plenty of positives in the UK economy and the bulk of them are domestic. That's what the BOE will be mostly interested in and there's no real need to dumb that down. The risks will be highlighted for the umpteenth time but overall I don't see there being any major fireworks from this meeting

The pound is treading walking water right now in the run up, and we should expect to see some position jockeying in the minutes leading up to the announcement. That won't be a signal for what's to come

1.5150 is the closest support and we'll see more down around 1.5117/25. That might be too close for any whippy headlines so 1.51 will no doubt hold sterner support

1.5200/10 is resistance above and it was a fairly strong level over the last couple of months. 1.5245/50 looks a touch stronger and could contain any mildly hawkish chatter

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