BoE says report of another delay of its bond sales is ‘inaccurate’

By Andy Bruce and William Schomberg

LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank of England said on Tuesday it had not decided to delay again the start of its sales of government bonds after the Financial Times reported that another postponement was likely because of the recent turmoil in British markets.

The newspaper said the BoE was likely to push back the start of its quantitative tightening (QT) gilt sales from a scheduled date of Oct. 31, having already delayed it from Oct. 6.

The FT said it had learned that top officials at the BoE had decided that a delay was likely after judging the gilts market to be “very distressed” in recent weeks, a view backed by its Financial Policy Committee.

“This morning’s FT report that the BoE has decided to delay MPC gilt sales (‘QT’) is inaccurate,” a spokesperson for the central bank said in an email without commenting further.

British government bonds – or gilts – suffered historic losses after the Sept. 23 publication of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s new economic growth plan, threatening pension funds and prompting the BoE to start buying bonds again.

Gilts have recouped some of their losses following a major U-turn announced by new finance minister Jeremy Hunt on Monday.

“The brave move would be to continue to do it” on schedule, Jon Day, global bond portfolio manager at Newton Investment Management, said of the BoE’s QT programme.

“At some point they’ve got to be serious about monetary policy and tackling inflation as well.”

The BoE’s statement on Tuesday briefly hit British government bond prices, with the 10-year gilt yield rising 4 to 5 basis points before easing back again.

In a letter to lawmakers, BoE Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said financial markets could remain volatile in the coming weeks but the risk of another “fire sale” dynamic in gilts had been significantly reduced.

Amid the market upheaval, the BoE last month announced its emergency programme to start buying gilts again and it pushed back the start of its scheme to sell some of its 838 billion pounds ($954.90 billion) of government bond holdings until Oct. 31 from an original start date of Oct. 6.

The central bank has previously said there would be a “high bar” for any delays to its sales plans.

BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said on Saturday that the central bank was not using its stock of bonds as an active tool of monetary policy at present and its benchmark Bank Rate remained its primary instrument of policy. Hunt is due to announce a medium-term budget plan on Oct. 31, the same day that the BoE has said it will start selling bonds.

The BoE’s emergency bond-buying programme, prompted by last month’s “mini-budget,” expired last Friday. ($1 = 0.8776 pounds)

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and William Schomberg in London; Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Sam Holmes, Andrew Heavens, Ed Osmond, William Maclean and Paul Simao)