the us federal reserve isn’t the only central bank with a tough decision to make traders and analysts aren’t certain what the bank of england will do at thursday’s meeting despite redhot inflation analysts at barclays are among those now expecting the bank of england to keep interest rates at 4 rather than lift them “we think significant upside risks to inflation would have called for a final 25 basis point hike largely for riskmanagement considerations however that call presupposed that the transmission of monetary policy tightening across major jurisdictions remained orderly which no longer seems to be the case with increasing risks of a material tightening in financial conditions via the banking channel” they said economists at nomura by contrast see a “last hurrah” with a quarter percentage point hike core inflation is still at 58 yearoveryear and the labor market is strong with a near 100000 rise in payrolls in february rates at 425 would be the highest since the financial crisis of 2008 but not particularly high relative to other cycles analysts at evercore say the bank of england will be looking over their shoulder at what the federal reserve does on wednesday “if the fed goes ahead and follows the european central bank in delivering a cautious hike anyway gov andrew bailey and co may worry that a boe pause could be read as signaling greater concern about uk banks” they say if the fed pauses they say “for sure the boe will too” that’s interesting logic particularly as the bank of england makes its decision on wednesday even though it’s announced on thursday unlike the fed the bank of england publishes the minutes simultaneously with the decision at bank of america they urge investors to be humble “either way we expect a further dovish shift to guidance and no further hikes after this week” they add the pound gbpusd was trading around 122 on tuesday the yield on the 2year gilt was 328 having been above 4 as recently as three weeks ago