Andy Haldane the BOE chief economist still cheered by UK business activity.

 Andy Haldane the BOE chief economist still cheered by UK business activity.

 

Andy Haldane the BOE chief economist

 Andy Haldane the BOE chief economist has given an interview to The Observer following his speech to businesses on Friday, where he said " I am gloomier" and called for a later rather than earlier interest rate hike. The comments caused a fall in the pound before recovering.

 He says that markets had been a little slow to take in the picture of weaker global growth, heightened geopolitical and financial risks and benign inflationary pressures. What we have seen over the past week is financial markets catching up with the data. Possibly overreacting to the data but certainly catching up, because I think there has been a drip drip drip – globally I mean – of slightly below-par news for several months. He feels market players are right to push back the chances of a rate rise to later in 2015. This is a big change from the summer, when some were talking about a move as soon as November. The data can move things around quite a lot… They have, and it has been in one direction Haldane is also concerned, however, with how those outside the financial markets are supposed to interpret such mixed headlines.

The Bank, he said, was also grappling with the question of why it is that growth is strong, unemployment is falling and inflation is low – yet many people are worse off than at the start of the financial crisis. The Observer has the full article here (http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/19/andy-haldane-bank-of-england-struggles-with-stance-on-economyarkets-manufacturing) http://assets.forexlive.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Haldane1.png Haldane- gloomy but still optimistic I don't expect this to have a major impact on GBP opening levels but it shows that Haldane does still see reasons for being a bit cheerful at least, and this may provide some support