MNI BOE Preview: March 2026 - Hold now, what's next?

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• The March MPC meeting had not long ago been largely priced for a 25bp cut but with events in the Middle East that eventuality looks unlikely with us, markets and analysts now expecting an on hold decision and at the time of writing markets are pricing in around a 60% probability of a 25bp hike by July, around a cumulative 90% probability by year-end and fully pricing a hike by the April 2027 meeting.
• The main focus will be on the Bank's updated guidance (and how each sentence could be tweaked / replaced / dropped), the vote split (our base case is 7-2) and the individual member paragraphs. We will look at these all in turn.
• We also summarise over 20 sell side views (all of which now look for an on hold decision in March but some have been updated notably since the February MPC meeting).