BOE Holds QE as King Assesses Expanded Toolkit

The Bank of England maintained its current bond-buying program as policy makers wait to assess the outlook for the latest stimulus and their new lending program to end the recession.

The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee led by Mervyn King held the quantitative-easing target at 375 billion pounds ($585 billion) today, as forecast by all but one of 40 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. It also held the key rate at a record-low 0.5 percent. Today’s decision was made with new economic projections that will be published next week.