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Press Conference - 15 February 2012

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Inflation Report - February 2012

The Inflation Report can be viewed as a complete PDF file or in sections. Click on the appropriate heading to access the file. To view these documents you should use the latest Adobe Reader (available free from the Adobe website, see External Links)

Complete book (701k)

Foreword (33k)
Contents (21k)
Overview (61k)
Money and asset prices (229k)
Demand (86k)
Output and supply (82k)
Costs and prices (132k)
Prospects for inflation (119k)
Index of charts and tables (28k)
Press Notices (23k)
Glossary and other information (23k)

Charts and tables in PowerPoint

All charts and tables in the Inflation Report are available in PowerPoint. Except where stated otherwise, all data are seasonally adjusted and the source of the data is the Bank of England or the Office for National Statistics.

Overview (405k)
Money and asset prices (982k)
Demand (1.0mb)
Output and supply (791k)
Costs and prices (778k)
Prospects for inflation (899k)

Data for charts in Excel

Data for charts in ‘Money and asset prices’, ‘Demand’, ‘Output and supply’ and ‘Costs and prices’ are available in Excel. Please note that some Inflation Report charts contain statistics that have been provided to the Bank of England by third parties. The Bank of England has reproduced this third-party data only where it has been able to obtain permission to do so.

Money and asset prices (533k)
Demand (108k)
Output and supply (412k)
Costs and prices (298k)

Conditioning path for market interest rates

The published projections are conditioned on a path for Bank Rate implied by market interest rates.  An explanation of how this conditioning path is estimated can be found here.

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The London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee (FX JSC) was established in 1973 under the auspices of the Bank of England, in the main part as a forum for banks and brokers to discuss broad market issues and the focus of the Committee’s regular work remains issues of common concern to the different participants in the foreign exchange market. The Bank of England provides the Committee’s Chairman and Secretary (contact telephone number: 020 7601 5982).

The Committee includes senior staff from many of the major banks operating in the foreign exchange market in London, as well as from voice- and electronic-brokers, corporate users of the foreign exchange market, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and representatives from the British Bankers’ Association, the Association of Corporate Treasurers and the Wholesale Market Brokers’ Association.

One of the main responsibilities of the Committee is to maintain the Non-Investment Products Code. This is a voluntary code of good market practice which covers bullion, wholesale deposits as well as the FX market. It is maintained in conjunction with the Sterling Money Markets Liaison Group, the London Bullion Market Association, and certain trade associations.

An updated version of the NIPs Code was published in November 2011.

The Non-Investment Products Code (NIPs)

FXJSC Paper on the Foreign Exchange Market

FXJSC Paper on the Foreign Exchange Market (137k)
September 2009

Results of the Semi-Annual FX Turnover Surveys

2011 Results

2010 Results

2009 Results

To see previous results of the Semi-Annual FX Turnover Surveys, show

A review of the work of the London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee

Click here to see previous reviews, show

London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee Meeting Minutes

Additional published documents

There are equivalent committees to the FXJSC in all of the major foreign exchange centres around the world. Details on the websites of these committees can be found in the following link:

Links to Other International Foreign Exchange Committee Websites

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To ensure that the Asset Purchase Facility is operated in an open and transparent manner, the Bank will publish a quarterly report on the transactions as part of the facility, shortly after the end of each quarter.

More information on the Asset Purchase Facility can be found on the markets pages of the website.

Latest Report

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2011 Q4 (140k)
Published 30 January 2012

Previous Reports

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2011 Q3 (130k)
Published 24 October 2011

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2011 Q2 (124k)
Published 25 July 2011

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2011 Q1 (115k)
Published 26 April 2011

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2010 Q4 (757k)
Published 31 January 2011

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2010 Q3 (122k)
Published 25 October 2010

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2010 Q2 (802k)
Published 26 July 2010

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2010 Q1 (833k)
Published 26 April 2010

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2009 Q4 (620k)
Published 25 January 2010

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2009 Q3 (620k)
Published 26 October 2009

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2009 Q2 (615k)
Published 27 July 2009

Asset Purchase Facility Quarterly Report - 2009 Q1 (542k)
Published 27 April 2009

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This Bank of England quarterly publication presents the Bank’s assessment of the latest trends in lending to the UK economy. The publication moved from a monthly to a quarterly schedule in October 2010 though key data series will continue to be updated on this website on a monthly basis. These are available in the ‘Selected data sets’ section below.

This report draws mainly on long-established official data sources, such as the existing monetary and financial statistics collected by the Bank that cover all monetary financial institutions, and on newer data collections, established since the start of the financial crisis to cover the major lenders, some of which are being extended across a wider range of reporters. (For more details see http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/ms/articles/art2oct10.pdf.)

These data are supplemented by discussions between the major UK lenders and Bank staff, giving staff a better understanding of the business developments driving the figures and this intelligence is reflected in the report. The major UK lenders are Banco Santander, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide and Royal Bank of Scotland. The report also draws on intelligence gathered by the Bank’s network of Agents and from market contacts, as well as the results of other surveys.

Separately, the Bank of England has agreed to publish the data collected from five banks under ‘Project Merlin’ on a quarterly basis. The ‘Project Merlin’ data are published alongside other existing measures of lending.

Latest quarterly publication
Published: 20 January 2012
Next publication: 23 April 2012

Trends in Lending - January 2012 (368k)

Data for charts in Trends in Lending are available in Excel. Please note worksheets only include those series for which we have permission to publish from the data supplier (which could be a third party data supplier).

1. Lending to UK businesses and individuals (111k)
2. Loan pricing (111k)
3. Credit supply and demand (85k)
4. Box - Recent trends in capital market issuance (81k)

Selected data sets
Published: 4 January 2012
Next publication: 31 January 2012

1. Lending to UK businesses and individuals (96k)
2. Loan Pricing (122k)

View all Trends in Lending publications

View all selected data set releases

If you have any questions or would like to give us feedback regarding Trends in Lending, please contact TiL_enquiries@bankofengland.co.uk.

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A flag flies on outside of the New York Stock Exchange building in New York in this May 6, 2010 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Files

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global markets closed out a week to remember on Friday as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s pledge to keep cheap money flowing through the economy pushed the Nasdaq to a 10-year high, and gold and silver broke records.

Commodity investments were especially hot. Prices on everything from oil to silver have now risen eight straight months through April in their longest winning streak since 2003. Silver alone shot up 27 percent.

Bernanke signalled on Wednesday that the U.S. central bank is in no rush to scale back its support for the economy with the labour market still in a “very, very deep hole.”

“Bernanke’s assurance this week to maintain very low policy rates is encouraging investors to take even more risk in a variety of asset classes and commodities, both within and outside the U.S,” said Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.2 trillion (718.3 billion pounds) in assets.

Investors also dumped the dollar, pushing it to a three-year low on concerns the Fed’s money-printing operation will further debase the greenback’s value. They also have deep concerns about growth in the United States, which is slower than many of its largest trading partners.

Showing how important the Fed’s easy money policy has been in upending traditional investment views, money has been pouring into transportation stocks even though oil prices — a primary expense for transport companies — are at multi-year highs.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average .DJT surged to an all-time high on Thursday, the same day U.S. oil prices touched a 31-month high.

Benchmark U.S. silver futures rose almost 4 percent for the week after racing to near $50 an ounce. Gold saw its biggest daily gain in five months on Friday, finishing near $1,550 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average racked up its best month since December and small- and mid-sized stock indexes hit record highs.

Major stock indexes, including the Nasdaq, lagged precious metals but booked solid weekly and monthly gains, despite worries over the unrest in the Middle East, unsolved public debt problems on both sides of the Atlantic and the cost of the natural disasters that ravaged Japan in March.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 47.23 points, or 0.37 percent, at 12,810.54. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX was up 3.13 points, or 0.23 percent, at 1,363.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 1.01 points, or 0.04 percent, at 2,873.54.

The billions of dollars the U.S. central bank has created to help the economy have succeeded in inflating asset prices and stemming deflation, but have failed to generate robust growth and slash unemployment.

Bernanke’s promise of keeping U.S. interest rates near zero — made at a news conference after a two-day policy meeting — crushed the dollar as traders piled into “carry trades” using the cheap dollar to fund them.

World equities, as measured by the MSCI .MIWD00000PUS index, rose 3.9 percent in April, despite anxiety over oil prices slowing global growth.

Benchmark crude oil prices finished above $125 a barrel in London, as the tumbling dollar and violence in North Africa and the Middle East outweighed concerns about slowing U.S. economic growth. <O/R> U.S. crude settled at $113.93 a barrel after earlier touching $114.18, the highest intraday price since crude reached $130 on September 22, 2008.

Boosted by the rally in precious metals, the 19-commodity Reuters-Jefferies CRB index .CRB, a broad indicator of the commodity market, is up 10 percent for the year, making it the world’s best-performing asset group. On Friday, the CRB Index gained 1.2 percent to end at 370.56, after earlier touching 370.71, a 52-week intraday high.

April’s strength in equity and commodity markets came almost entirely at the dollar’s expense after Standard & Poor’s revised downward its outlook for the United States’ stellar triple-A sovereign credit rating.

Friday’s economic reports reinforced this fragile outlook. Data showed slowing growth in regional manufacturing and high gasoline prices reducing Americans’ purchasing power.

The U.S. dollar index versus major currencies .DXY fell as low as 72.834, the lowest since 2008. Late Friday, the dollar index was down 0.1 percent at 73.036.

The euro touched a 17-month high against the greenback, trading at $1.4844 by 1500 GMT.

U.S. Treasury prices rose, punctuating an April rally that lifted the market into positive territory for the year, as traders bet on slowing economic growth and the Fed’s accommodative monetary policy. <US/>

(Additional reporting by Barani Krishnan, Chuck Mikolajczak, Frank Tang, Robert Gibbons and Julie Haviv and Ellen Freilich, Editing by Chris Sanders and Jan Paschal)

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