| Time | Country | Event | Period | Previous value | Forecast | Actual |
|---|
| 07:45 | France | CPI, m/m | February | -0.2% | 0.8% | 0.8% |
| 07:45 | France | CPI, y/y | February | 3.1% | 2.9% | 3% |
GBP weakened against most of its major rivals in the European session on Friday as investors shifted their focus to the Bank of England’s policy meeting next week.
The BoE’s March 21 meeting is expected to end with no change to the Bank Rate, a reiteration that monetary policy needs to remain restrictive for sufficiently long and an accent on the necessity of clear signs that inflation is returning to the 2% target sustainably.
Investors had noticeably scaled back their bets on the scale of the rate cuts by the BoE earlier this year in response to the data, showing less favourable than desired trends in wage growth and services price inflation, the key indicators of inflation persistence. However, the latest reports indicated further slow improvement in these two metrics, encouraging the case for the British central bank to start loosening policy this year.
Adding to arguments for an easier policy stance, the BoE’s latest inflation attitudes survey revealed that the UK households’ expectations of a year-ahead inflation rate fell to 3.0% in February, the lowest level since November 2021.