Markets on alert for UK’s new Super Thursday of economic data
Markets are on alert ahead of the UK’s new economic touchstone, a Super Thursday of economic data.
From this Thursday, the monthly rate decision and the minutes of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting will be released together, without the normal fortnightly gap.
Many see the new date as similar to the US’s most important monthly release, the non-farm payrolls.
But some say it is information overload.
Both are key indicators for the whole economy.
Every three months Super Thursday will also coincide with the release of the Bank’s quarterly inflation report.
This lunchtime, the Bank of England is releasing these three core items of economic data.
- A decision on interest rate levels in the UK
- The minutes of the MPC- crucially the voting decisions that made the decision
- The Bank’s quarterly Inflation Report
Review
Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, says bringing these three announcements together will “enhance our transparency and make us more accountable to the British people”.
Super Thursday is the result of a review published in December by Governor Kevin Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve System, into the MPC’s transparency.
He said: “Members often find themselves in the uncomfortable position of necessarily obfuscating their views in public in the two-week gap between the policy meeting and the publication of the minutes.
“This also leads to a blizzard of communications from MPC members in the short period between the release of the minutes and the ‘purdah’ period for the next policy meeting.”
Overkill
But the reform has not been greeted with universal enthusiasm. Some believe that with all the attention on the voting and the decision of the MPC, important data in the Inflation Report will be ignored.
Larry Elliott, economics editor of the Guardian newspaper, called Super Thursday a “data dump” and said: “The information overload will make it harder not easier for the Bank’s thinking to be scrutinised.”
Philip Aldrick, of The Times newspaper, says there will be too much information for the markets to absorb “cleanly”.
He wrote: “It’s the start of a massive streamlining of the Bank’s communications strategy that will see 28 monetary announcements slimmed down to eight a year.
“Wrapping up the Inflation Report with the rate decision and minutes is overkill”.
Source: BBC – Markets on alert for UK’s new Super Thursday of economic data
