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Bank of England: Four things to watch at the August meeting
The Bank of England will unveil its new quarterly forecasts on Thursday - and on paper the story is still likely to be fairly upbeat. Policymakers are likely to raise the inflation forecast quite noticeably for later this year. Reopening-related price spikes in various consumer services are combining with lingering supply chain disruption and energy base effects to drive a faster inflation rate than the Bank had pencilled in back in May. We now expect CPI to peak around 3.5% later this year, compared to 2.5% as the Bank was forecasting back in May. Unemployment has also been a bit better than feared, and it’s ... (full story)