BOE’s Lombardelli warns rate hikes may continue as wage pressures persist

Bank of England Deputy Governor Clare Lombardelli has warned that further interest rate increases may be necessary as wage pressures remain persistent, signaling that the central bank is not yet confident inflation is returning sustainably to its 2% target. The transmission mechanism runs through inflation repricing: sticky wage growth feeds into services inflation and domestic cost pressures, which pushes out market expectations for the peak Bank Rate and extends the period of restrictive policy. Sterling and UK gilts are most directly exposed, with the front end of the gilt curve likely to reprice higher as rate-cut expectations are pared back, while UK-focused equities, particularly rate-sensitive housebuilders and domestic consumer names, face pressure from tighter financial conditions. Traders should watch the next UK labour market release from the Office for National Statistics, particularly regular pay growth excluding bonuses, as the key data point that will determine whether the BoE's tightening bias is validated or softened.

HIGH-impact news is typically a market-moving event with multi-pip or multi-percent intraday reactions. Examples include central bank rate decisions, major CPI/NFP releases, geopolitical shocks, mega-cap earnings beats/misses, and regulatory announcements. Traders typically position-reduce or hedge ahead of scheduled HIGH-impact events, and follow the wire in real time to react to unscheduled ones (war headlines, central-bank emergency statements, surprise corporate actions). The Trading News Terminal squawk box reads every HIGH-impact headline aloud the moment it hits the wire — so active traders don't have to stare at the feed.

Active traders typically follow a three-step workflow when a market-moving headline hits the wire: (1) read the headline on the terminal or hear it on the squawk box; (2) assess whether the news is already priced in (by checking intraday price action in the seconds before) or whether it's genuinely new information; (3) act — either entering a breakout position, fading an overreaction, or tightening stops on existing trades. Trading News Terminal's Pro plan delivers wire-grade headlines within seconds of the source, with automatic audio squawk on every HIGH-impact event, so the read-assess-act cycle never waits on a refresh button.