Bank of England prepares to announce interest rate decision

Thank you for joining us. The Bank of England will announce its next interest rate decision at midday.

We’ll have live coverage of the preparation, the decision and what it means for you.

We start with a look at income tax, which a leading think tank believes could rise by 3p regardless of who wins the next election.

The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said that the promise to respect the fiscal rules – which say that the debt will decrease within five years – means that the only hope to fulfill the promise is to raise taxes.

5 things to start the day

1) Apple’s ‘destructive’ new iPad ad sparks negative reactions from artists and authors | Musical instruments and art supplies got squashed in Apple’s latest ad.

2) Treasure hunter backed by Sir Paul Marshall loses legal battle over WWII silver | Argentum fails to recover costs of recovering 2,000 silver bars from 1942 shipwreck

3) P&O Ferries boss forced to ‘clarify’ evidence to MPs as he admits crew only have one day off a month | Peter Hebblethwaite said he was seeking to clarify the situation after giving evidence in person.

4) HS2 tunnel delayed by question marks over £1bn funding | Bosses agree to delivery of drills despite uncertainty over 4.5 mile route through London

5) I was debanked like Nigel Farage, says Haldane, former Bank of England economist | Municipal regulation had gone too far, said the economist

What happened during the night?

Asian stocks were mixed after Wall Street’s lull extended for a second day, with Chinese benchmarks rising after China reported better-than-expected trade figures for April.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 0.5% to 38,392.10.

Shares of automaker Mitsubishi fell 4.7 percent in early trading after the company forecast a 7 percent lower net profit in the fiscal year ending in March 2025.

Toyota Motor rose 0.1 percent after reporting Wednesday that it doubled its net profit in the fiscal year that ended in March.

The US dollar rose to 155.59 Japanese yen from 155.52 yen, as reports in Tokyo speculated on the likelihood of further intervention by the Ministry of Finance to stem the yen’s decline.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2 percent to 18,538.57 and the Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.9 percent to 3,156.96.

China reported that its exports rose 1.5 percent in April from a year earlier, while imports rose 8.4 percent. The renewed growth suggests a stronger demand recovery than previous data had suggested.

In South Korea, the Kospi lost 0.6% to 2,729.64. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.9% to 7,735.20.

In the United States, the S&P 500 closed virtually unchanged yesterday at 5,187.67. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4 percent to 39,056.39, and the Nasdaq Composite index fell 0.2 percent to 16,302.76.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury bond rose to 4.49 percent from 4.46 percent late Tuesday.

Asian stocks weakened on Thursday as investors awaited China trade data to gauge the health of the Chinese economy.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1 percent, standing not far from a 15-month high hit earlier in the week.

Chinese stocks rose 0.6 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.7 percent on the back of a 2 percent rebound in technology stocks and a recovery in Chinese property developers.