London Report: Carney to face questions over Bank oversight
MARK CARNEY faces probably his toughest questioning so far as Bank of England governor tomorrow when lawmakers will seize on a foreign exchange scandal to press their demands for tighter oversight of the central bank.
Carney will face the Treasury Select Committee over claims the Bank’s governance system is outdated. Last week the Bank suspended an official amid an internal review into whether its staff turned a blind eye to possible manipulation of key rates by foreign exchange traders.
Carney is also likely to be quizzed about the Bank’s February inflation report
Paul Fisher, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and the Bank’s head of foreign exchange, will also appear, along with external monetary policy members David Miles and Martin Weale.
In other economic news, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) retail sales monitor is expected to show growth in February. Trade data is due on Wednesday, with many analysts expecting the trade gap to have widened.
Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, predicts manufacturing output, due tomorrow, will show a 0.3 per cent month-on-month gain in January, after a similar rise in December. “This would cause manufacturing output to be up by 3.2 per cent year-on-year in January,” he said.
The corporate calendar starts today with full-year figures from Clarkson and HgCapital Trust.
Tomorrow Antofagasta, Close Brothers, Computacenter, Craneware, esure, Fenner, Foxtons, Hansteen Holdings, Hill & Smith Holdings, Inchcape, St Ives and Tyman will all update the market.
Wednesday’s figures will come from Brooks Macdonald Group, Ferrexpo, French Connection Group, G4S, Hikma Pharmaceuticals and Prudential.
On Thursday Bwin.party, Eurocastle Investment, F&C Asset Management, WM Morrison, Nichols, Salamander Energy, SIG, Trinity Mirror and TT Electronics will deliver full-year results, while Home Retail Group is set to give a trading update.
Investors will be keen to see if Morrisons can improve on its poor Christmas trading update.
Finally on Friday Tribal Group will give end-of-year figures, JD Wetherspoon will unveil half-year results and SThree will update the market.