LONDON (Reuters) -Betting too heavily on a Bank of England rate cut at its June rate meeting would be a bad idea, BoE Chief Economist Huw Pill said on Friday, noting that Governor Andrew Bailey had said a cut next month was possible but not a "fait accompli".
"Focusing just on the next meeting probably is a little bit ill advised," Pill said in an online presentation to businesses and the BoE's regional agents.
Financial markets currently price in a 46% chance of a quarter-point rate cut on June 16 - little changed from before Thursday's BoE announcement - and a total of two rate cuts over the course of 2024.
Pill voted with the majority of the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee to keep interest rates at a 16-year high of 5.25% on Thursday, and said afterwards that he had growing confidence it would soon be time to cut rates.
However, he said on Friday that the BoE had been clear it would only cut interest rates once it was sure that longer-term drivers of inflation such as growth in wages and services prices were definitely on the way down.
The BoE expects data to show consumer price inflation fell to around its 2% target in April from 3.2% in March - largely due to a drop in regulated energy prices - but forecasts inflation will rise again later in 2024.
The BoE did lower its forecasts for inflation in two and three years' time, a move investors often interpret as a signal that rates will need to be cut by more than they had expected.
Pill said these forecasts represented a longer-term assessment of the outlook for inflation and interest rates.
"I don't think that necessarily tells you much about interest rate decisions at one meeting or the next meeting," he said.
(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by Sarah Young)
By David Milliken
