Economics
BOE Expands Bond-Purchase Program for First Time Since 2009
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The Bank of England pledged to buy the most bonds since the depths of the last financial crisis as officials raced to stop the euro-region debt turmoil from pushing the economy back into recession.
The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee led by Governor Mervyn King raised the ceiling for so-called quantitative easing to 275 billion pounds ($421 billion) from 200 billion pounds. That’s the biggest expansion since the first round of stimulus in March 2009. Only 11 of 32 economists in a Bloomberg News survey predicted an increase in asset purchases.