The Daily Update: BoE / Non-Farm Payrolls

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) also voted unanimously to leave UK interest rates unchanged, at their current record low of 0.1%. It too left the asset purchase stimulus programme unchanged. It similarly dampened any prospects of cutting interest rates below zero for the next few months at least. Following a consultation with the UK’s major banks, the MPC concluded they would need at least six months to prepare for negative interest rates. Moving sooner than six months would lead to ‘increased operational risks’.

We also had January’s Non-Farm Payrolls today. The market estimates before the figures were for 105k jobs added, an unemployment rate of 6.7% and participation rate of 61.5% before the figures.

The actual number of jobs added was just 49k with the previous month’s figure revised down from minus 140k to minus 227k. The unemployment rate fell to 6.3% versus the prior month’s reading of 6.7% and the participation rate fell to 61.4%.