Interest Rates Remain at 0.5%
Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 12:33PM Click here for our Clash of the Titans page.
Q1 '13 Interest Rates: 0.5
Average Prediction: 0.5
Number of Correct Forecasts: 303/310
Current Greek Bond Yield Low: 10.15 (28th Jan)
To nobody's surprise, the Bank of England announced that the base rate would remain at 0.5% in March, meaning that the quarterly average stays at 0.5% for the 16th quarter in a row. We have to wait until the 20th March to see how the members of the committee voted, which will give us a better idea of whether interest rates are going to change in the coming months.
Almost everybody who entered our competition got this right, including the three professors, so there is very little movement in the standings. Four people thought interest rates would go up this quarter (up to a maximum prediction of 1%), while three thought they would go down (to 0%).
The next date in the competition diary is the 27th March, when the final estimate for fourth quarter GDP growth is announced. It may unfortunately be just as unexciting as this latest release, since there was no change between the first and second estimates. It should all start moving again in April however, when we have Q1 inflation and GDP growth coming out.
Click here for a summary of the results so far, or here for the full standings.