(Bloomberg) --
Investors are now betting the U.K. will join the negative-rates club by the end of December.
Spurred by Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane’s comments that the institution is looking at unconventional monetary policies -- including negative rates -- more urgently, overnight interest-rate swaps for December’s meeting dropped below 0% for the first time.
Last week, money markets had seen the move in a year’s time.
“With inflation below target, the recovery incomplete and tighter fiscal policy in future years we expect the BOE to implement further stimulus,” wrote Robert Wood, chief U.K. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (NYSE:BAC), in a note to clients. “It seems increasingly hard to us to rule out a cut to zero.”
Bank of America also expects the BOE to boost its quantitative-easing program by at least 200 billion pounds ($242 billion) in August, on top of up to 75 billion pounds of extra buying in June.
Market pressure on the U.S. and the U.K. to cut rates below zero is growing with the coronavirus continuing to weigh on economic output. Still, officials are reluctant to make the move, citing risks that a negative interest-rate policy stifles bank profitability, and harms the economy more than it helps.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) has also expressed such concerns, arguing in an emailed note that both Japan and the euro area -- which have rates in negative territory -- have seen greater underperformance of stocks, economic growth, loan growth and bank valuations than the U.S.
“We think that the Fed’s long-standing reluctance to take rates negative is well founded, and our economists and interest-rate strategists expect it to hold this line,” wrote Andrew Sheets, chief cross asset strategist at the U.S. bank.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.