Bank of England holds rates at 3.75% as it waits for 'cloudy' data to clear

In today's (5 February) meeting, five MPC members opted to hold rates while the remaining four voted to reduce rates by 25bps to 3.5%. Markets priced in a 96% chance of the BoE making no changes to the interest rate, with the next cut not expected until April, according to AJ Bell's head of markets Dan Coatsworth. Earlier in the day, Wealth Club's chief Investment strategist, Susannah Streeter, predicted central bankers would take a "wait and see approach" as they wait for "cloudy data to become clearer". Recent data from the Office for National Statistics showed unemployment remai...