"There's even a slight whiff of concern about the ultimate debt sustainability [of the UK government]" says Larry Summers on #Newsnight...
..."There's been a major loss of market credibility and market confidence...so it's appropriate that the IMF be watching"...
..."It seems an odd response to developments on Friday & raised real question of whether British authorities were grasping the reality of their situation"...
..."The combination [of dangers] that Britain is facing is very ominous and the kind of warning from the IMF is the kind of warning that comes much more frequently to emerging markets"...
..."This has the look right now of a number of unforced errors"
"It would be a tragedy if this ends up in further cuts," Mohamed El-Erian tells #Newsnight ...
...UK has "an incredibly incoherent" economic policy says El-Erian, citing government pushing liquidity into the economy and the Bank trying to take it out...
...El-Erian "What we need is for the tax reductions to be withdrawn, we need the Bank of England to act on interest rates...& protect the most vulnerable"...
Idea the UK bond market crash since last Friday is due to size of energy support package is difficult to square with the fact the UK wholesale gas price is now 321p per therm - lower than the 410p it was on 8 September when the plan was confirmed...
...the UK gas futures curve has also shifted down - which implies the cost of the package could turn out to be substantially *cheaper* than initially feared, as explained here...
...so somewhat implausible that it would be this part of the package on Friday which has spooked markets.
Also woth noting that even on the *higher* projections of the cost of the energy support package (£150bn - yellow bars below) it's a *temporary* cause of higher borrowing...
I'm hearing, as per Bloomberg report, that the government energy price freeze plan, which we will likely get details on tomorrow AM, will work by capping the gas/electricity prices chargable to firms at a certain £/KWH rate... bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
...& will likely be backdated so firms get support for higher costs incurred since the Spring, not just the six months from October...
...the latter will be welcomed by firms on variable rates which have already been hit hard by price increases this year.
But some big caveats/question marks being highlighted...
UK sovereign bond yield curve still "inverted" this morning (data from Refinitiv).
2 year Gilt yields (3.021%) trading higher than 10 year yields (2.805%)...
...normally 10 year yields are higher.
Inversion often seen as a recession signal from bond market.
Signals (arguably) investors expect Bank of England rate hikes in immediate term, but much weaker economy further out which will require lower rates i.e recession...
...though inverted yield curve has been a more reliable recession predictor in the US than in the UK.