BOE’s Saunders: Question of paring back bond buys early to be under consideration at forthcoming meetings

“The question of whether to curtail our current asset purchase program early will be under consideration at our forthcoming meetings,” the Bank of England (BOE) policymaker Michael Saunders said in his scheduled speech on Thursday.

Additional comments

“Options to withdraw stimulus include curtailing QE (ending it in the next month or two) and/or further policy action next year.”

“If bank rate does rise in the next year or so, it is likely that any rise would be relatively limited.”

“Risk management considerations have limits.”

“There are increasing risk considerations on the other side, in particular that continuing with asset purchases when CPI inflation is above 3% and the output gap is closed.”

“Activity seems to have recovered a bit faster than May forecast.”

“Risks lie on the side that output gap will close earlier than previously expected.”

GBP/USD spikes towards 1.3900

GBP/USD caught a fresh bid wave on the hawkish comments from Saunders, as it jumps towards 1.3900.

At the time of writing, the cable rises 0.14% on the day, trading at 1.3876, retracing from daily highs of 1.3885 reached in the last minutes.