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FTSE 100 Live: Miners lead stock fall as gold rout deepens

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Gold bars on a table
The Iran conflict has upended the demand for gold

Good morning and welcome back to the City PM liveblog.

There’s one big event the City is looking towards this week but all signs point to zero surprises.

On Thursday, the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee will meet for the first time this year and decide whether to take the chop to interest rates.

It’ll be the first decision since the Christmas cut, which brought rates down to 3.75 per cent.

Bank governor Andrew Bailey said inflation had “passed the recent peak” paving the way for the fourth cut of the year, though he cautioned cuts going forward would likely be a “closer call”.

Since then, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in January showed the headline measure for price growth – consumer price index inflation, had inched back up to 3.4 per cent in December.

This overshot the expectations of economists polled by Bloomberg which had predicted a reading at 3.3 per cent. 

The ONS pointed to higher tobacco prices and recently-introduced excise duty increases as helping inflation rise for the first time in five months.

More concerningly, food price inflation hit 4.5 per cent compared to 4.2 per cent in the previous month. The measure is closely watched by Bank of England rate-setters given the cost of groceries can weigh heavily on inflation expectations. 

Economists across the City are pencilling in an easy hold – but could there be a swerve to start off the year?

We’ll be bringing you the latest news and analysis of the morning as well as what’s to come this week.

In the meantime, here’s a few of our top stories from the weekend: