Bank of England Punts

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England this morning announced that it will leave its policy lending rate at 0.5% and that it will continue its asset purchase program at the current level of £375 billion (about $604…

Published October 4, 2012, 7:43am ET · 1 min read

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The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England this morning announced that it will leave its policy lending rate at 0.5% and that it will continue its asset purchase program at the current level of £375 billion (about $604 billion).

The committee expects the asset purchase program to be completed next month, but did say that “the scale of the programme will be kept under review.” The bank is happy to wait to see how the economy fares before raising the limit again. In July the bank added £80 billion to its original purchase plan.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will be announcing its policy decisions later this morning. The ECB is expected to leave its interest rate at a record low of 0.75%. More important than the interest rate, however, will be any comments by ECB President Mario Draghi related to the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) policy he announced several weeks ago.

Paul Ausick

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Paul Ausick

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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