Remember what you’re fighting for.
The UK is really running out of steam. It’s not clear how they are going to prevent a serious economic collapse in the relatively near future.
The dollar is being strengthened right now by these other currencies collapsing. But when the pound and the euro go, there will be no insulation for the dollar (except China, sort of – but they are going to stop playing this game).
The Bank of England again sought to stem a sharp sell-off in Britain’s 2.1 trillion pound ($2.3 trillion) government bond markets on Tuesday, expanding its emergency buying to inflation-linked debt.
Citing a “material risk” to financial stability after pension firms were hit by the turmoil, the BoE split its programme to buy up to 10 billion pounds of British gilts each day to include up to 5 billion pounds of index-linked bonds.
This marked the BoE’s fifth attempt to quell market turmoil in just over two weeks, including verbal interventions, and marked another embarrassment for Prime Minister Liz Truss whose economic agenda last month sent investors heading for the exit.
Inflation-linked gilts, typically held by pension funds and known in the market as linkers, suffered another significant sell-off on Monday as the end to the BoE’s programme approached.
“The beginning of this week has seen a further significant repricing of UK government debt, particularly index-linked gilts,” the BoE said in a statement.
“Dysfunction in this market, and the prospect of self-reinforcing ‘fire sale’ dynamics pose a material risk to UK financial stability.”
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Investors in British government debt are worried about what will happen to the market after most of the BoE’s emergency support measures end.
“Eventually, the gilt sell-off could force the BoE back into the market,” wrote Antoine Bouvet, strategist at ING, in a research note titled “the never ending gilt calamity”.
The British central bank has postponed the start of its sales of gilts until Oct. 31 – a big step in the unwinding of its quantitative easing (QE) stimulus push over the past decade – in order to launch its ongoing emergency purchase programme.
“While the BoE intervenes in gilt and corporate bond markets, the policy of consistently acting at the last minute without putting a more credible long-term plan in place is unnerving for markets,” Bouvet said.
What are we doing here, guys?