Surprise..Surprise !!!!

Di paste dari Dow Jones
LONDON (Dow Jones)--The Bank of England raised its official bank rate to 4.75%
from 4.50% Thursday following a two-day monthly meeting of its Monetary Policy
Committee.
The decision to raise rates was largely unexpected. A Dow Jones Newswires
survey last week found that 24 of 30 economists who were polled expected the MPC
to leave rates at 4.50%.

The bank said it expected headline inflation as measured by the consumer price
index to remain above the 2% target for "some while."
"Against the background of firm growth, limited spare capacity, rapid growth
of broad money and credit, and with inflation likely to remain above the target
for some while, the Committee judged an increase of 0.25 percentage points in
the official bank rate to 4.75% was necessary to bring CPI inflation back to the
target in the medium term," a statement accompanying the minutes said.
The statement said the pace of economic activity has picked up in recent
months, with household spending have recovered from its post-Christmas dip and
business investment and investment intentions also having picked up.

Di paste dari Reuters:
LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Sterling rallied a full U.S. cent
and hit a 2-1/2 month peak versus the euro, while UK stocks fell
on Thursday after the Bank of England surprised the markets by
raising interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.75 percent.
Sterling jumped to a two-month high against the dollar at
1105 GMT above $1.8840 , up more than one cent from before
decision levels. Against the euro, sterling hit a fresh 2-1/2
month high at 67.72 pence .
The FTSE 100 <.FTSE> was down 59.4 points or 1 percent at a
session low of 5,872.7 points, diving from 5,900 points just
before the announcement.
"Obviously this goes against most analysts' expectations.
The BoE is saying it's now the case the economy is stronger,
growth is slightly above trend. With inflation above target they
are just taking precautionary measures," said Jeremy Stretch,
market strategist at Rabobank.
"There is still a lot more priced in for sterling yield
curves the market is debating risk of another rate hike by the
year end, although I think it's over-ambitious."