-- The Bank of England is about to grapple with one of the thorniest decisions since it began unwinding crisis-era stimulus in 2022 as it confronts a year of unusually high bond redemptions.Governor Andrew Bailey and his colleagues will decide this month whether to keep the run-off of their portfolio bought up through years of emergency purchases at a steady pace of £100 billion , or whether to increase that amount.
So far, a portfolio of corporate and government debt bought up under quantitative easing to support the economy during the financial crisis and the pandemic has already shrunk from £895 billion down to £688 billion, and is now composed solely of gilts.The BOE has achieved that through a mix of actively selling bonds and stopping reinvestments when they reach their redemption dates.
Strategist Jamie Searle at Citigroup expects a target of £120 billion, but warned the BOE could even go as high as around £140 billion. Imogen Bachra, head of economics and markets strategy at NatWest Markets, cites a surge in banks’ use of the weekly short-term repo facility to as high as £40 billion from as little as £700 million at the start of the year as a motivation for the BOE to end gilt sales altogether.
Whatever happens, the BOE’s lack of guidance about a change in the target is one reason to expect no change, according to Saunders, a former BOE rate-setter who is now a senior policy adviser at Oxford Economics.
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