the pound wobbled thursday after the bank of england kept its kept interest rates and its quantitative easing plan unchanged as the central bank boosted its uk gross domestic product and inflation forecast the 7to1 vote in favor of keeping its qe program unchanged at £875 billion for government bonds came as michael saunders as expected called for a reduction to £830 billion there was some speculation based on recent commentary that dave ramsden would join saunders in calling for a reduction but in the end he voted with the committee the pound gbpusd did move higher after the boe decision to as much as 13946 from 13890 on wednesday before drifting back to the 13915 level the bank of england hiked its gdp forecast for 2022 by a quarter point in both 2022 and 2023 increased its cpi forecast to 25 from 2 in 2022 and said a modest tightening of monetary policy over the forecast period is likely to be necessary the central bank said inflation would jump to 4 in the fourth quarter a level saunders feared might cause mediumterm inflation expectations to drift higher in june the 12month rate of inflation was 25 vivek paul uk chief investment strategist at the blackrock investment institute noted the central bank now believes that it can stop reinvesting the proceeds from bonds when the policy rate hits 05 rather than 15 implying a more gradual tightening policy ahead the ftse 100 ukx was trading lower on thursday weighed down by losses for the heavyweight miners rio tinto rio  anglo american aal and bhp group bhp  rollsroyce rr advanced nearly 4 as the engine maker said it’s on track to meet its target of turning free cash flow positive in the second half it swung to an underlying firsthalf of operating profit of £307 million rollsroyce separately said late wednesday that it was in talks with bain capital on the sale of its spanish business itp aero the spanish newspaper expansion reported the deal price might be €16 billion