Financial Favourites

The Bank of England’s rate-setters have decided to pump another £50bn of new money into the economy in their programme of quantitative easing.

It will take their total spending to £175bn, unexpectedly going over the £150bn set aside by the chancellor.

In a statement, they said that the UK recession “appears to have been deeper than previously thought”.

The rate-setters also decided to keep interest rates unchanged at their historic low of 0.5% for a fifth month.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8187360.stm

The BBC are reporting:

The pound and the FTSE 100 index of top UK-listed shares have hit their highest levels since October on growing hopes for an economic recovery.

Markets took heart after brighter UK economic data and a rally in financial stocks following profits from banking giants HSBC and Barclays.

Sterling rose as high as $1.6965 against the dollar and hit a one-month high against the euro of 84.63p.

The FTSE 100 index ended at its highest level since early October at 4,682.46.

The index rose 1.6%, or 74 points, and earlier hit intra-day trading high of 4,710.23.