Closing summary
The governor of the Bank of England, and his counterpart at the Central Bank of Ireland, who sits on the European Central Bank’s governing council, have pushed back against expectations of early interest rate cuts.
Andrew Bailey said it’s “too early” to talk about interest rate cuts.
Speaking at a conference hosted by the Central Bank of Ireland in Dublin, the Bank of England governor said:
It’s really too early to be talking about cutting rates… We are very clear, we are not talking about that.
Bailey said he is “optimistic” that inflation will come back to the 2% target within two years, but that rates will likely need to stay high for longer to make that happen.
Central Bank of Ireland governor Gabriel Makhlouf echoed those comments.
Bailey also called for greater cooperation on financial rule-making, warning that Brexit has affected the “openness of the UK economy”.
In an apparent swipe at those calling for the UK to develop a separate rulebook for banking and insurance activities, he said free trade needed strong regulation based on agreements with foreign watchdogs.
Our other main stories today:
Picasso sale to kick off art auction season expected to rack up £2bn in sales
A Pablo Picasso masterpiece of his “golden muse” is predicted to trigger a £100m-plus bidding war between billionaire art collectors on Wednesday night in the first big lot of an autumn auction season that is expected to sell more than £2bn of art.
The portrait, Femme à la Montre (Woman with Watch), will be sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York at 6pm local time, with a sales estimate in excess of $120m (£98m).
The 1932 painting of Picasso’s secret lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, was created during the artists explosive “year of wonders” as he prepared for his first large-scale retrospective in Paris at the age of 50 and is highly sought after by collectors.
“Picasso is all about passion, but this specific passion [for watches] is one that is not generally known about,” said Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s vice-chair for global fine arts. “He was an incredibly stylish man, very interested in his sartorial identity, and a great connoisseur of watches. Even photos of him wearing his watches are prized by watch collectors.”
