For all the recent talk of the Fed and ‘quantitative tightening’, it’s the Bank of England that’s poised to lead the charge on reducing the size of its balance sheet. Starting this week, policymakers are set to end a policy of reinvesting proceeds from government bonds maturing within its portfolio. We look at what this means for markets. What is the market impact of ending bond reinvestments? The Bank of England is poised to hike rates to 0.5% this week. And this means that the Bank's own threshold for reducing the size of its balance sheet will be met. According to guidance released last summer, step one of this ... (full story)