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Money supply weakens
The supply of money in the UK economy rose in October by 1.6 per cent on the previous month on the broad M4 measure. But the annual growth rates slowed and the Bank of England’s preferred measure of the money supply (which excludes intermediate financial companies)?showed a 0.7 per cent drop, following a similar fall the previous month, extending the quarterly decline to an annualised 3.4 per cent. The news will cast fresh doubt on the efficacy of quantitative easing, which was meant to boost the money supply.