It’s a busy week of UK data, with the labour market figures, inflation and retail sales numbers all setting the scene for the Bank of England’s 7th November meeting. As a reminder, that is the same day as the FOMC meeting, which comes two days after the US Presidential election, with the NFP jobs data the Friday before(!). The pound has been trying to consolidate recently after selling off quite sharply on Bank of England Governor Bailey’s dovish comments at the start of the month. He said the MPC might be a bit more aggressive in cutting rates, provided that the inflation news continues to be good.
Jobs data released on Tuesday is likely to show that wage growth, the key metric for the MPC, has softened further to 3.8% on the back of a loosening labour market. The ex-bonus figure is expected to slip below 5% to 4.9%. Headline rates may tick up in the coming months due to public sector pay deals and base effects, but rate setters will have their eyes on private sector regular pay momentum, which should continue to decline. The deceptively low headline unemployment rate is forecast to remain at 4.1%.
Regarding Wednesday’s inflation report, consensus sees the annual headline CPI figure easing to 1.9% from 2.2%, after holding steady in the prior release. The core is also seen moderating, though by a smaller extent to 3.5% from 3.6%. That had risen from 3.3%, while the all-important services metric previously jumped to 5.6% from 5.2% due to unfavourable base effects and certain volatile sectors.
This time, the headline is likely to be weighed on by declines in fuel prices for the month; though, recent price action in the energy space and ongoing geopolitical tensions means it is hard to say if this will be sustained or not. For service inflation, we note the BoE’s forecast in August was 5.5%, and many economists forecast a lower print, although the data has been volatile recently due to very choppy hotel prices, owing to the Taylor Swift effect.
From a policy perspective, this will be the final inflation report before the November policy announcement and fresh quarterly Monetary Policy Report. Markets assign around an 80% chance of a 25bps cut at that meeting, so there is no too much more room for dovish repricing on softer data. Decent support sits around 1.30 in GBP/USD. However, a hot release would provide ammunition to the more cautious hawks on the MPC and could set markets up for another split vote next month.