Tuesday, July 28, 2009

UK inflation down to 14.2%

It would seem the UK Gilt storm spotted by Liam Halligan is further reflected in this chart, with UK inflation coming down to 14.2%, from 16.7% last month. The Bank of England is playing funny games, and the only way I'll be able to make sense of this is to find their own figures on 'excess reserves' as in the Fed article below.

If anyone knows where the BoE keep their excess reserve figures on their website, I'd be obliged to find out. As navigating around that horrible site is tantamount to traversing the Circles of Hell.

Latest M4 figures, here.

Link to May 2009 M4 figures.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They say M4 is/has been high, reflecting corporate bank deposits maintained at an exceptionally high level to counter the lack of bank lending.

I guess that this dip reflecs some slight relaxation of the banks' risk profile and a corresponding reduction in corporate deposits with banks.

Jack Maturin said...

If we're following the U.S. pattern, where money is being piled up in 'excess' reserve accounts at the central bank, we could still see some extraordinary inflation figures when this cash finally sees the light of day.

I wish I knew the Bank of England site better.

I know the information will be in there somewhere. It's just knowing where to find it.

I suppose that's one thing we can say about the Fed. They may be many things, but when they provide information it's often a good window into what's going on.

I think all the statisticians at the BoE were born with the word 'obfuscation' on their lips! ;-)