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Given how surprisingly robust recent UK economic data has been in the past few weeks, markets had been expecting a broadly unanimous vote (9-0) for the addition of a further £50bn of QE at the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee.
This morning's Q4 GDP numbers while disappointing weren't that much of a surprise given the weakness of some of the recent economic data, especially in respect to industrial and manufacturing production.
When I looked at the banking sector twelve months ago in the wake of the rebound we had seen since the lows in March 2009 I struggled to see where any future upside would come from.
Over the past few weeks speculation has increased that the Bank of England could well be set to embark on a fresh round of asset purchases at this week’s monthly rate setting meeting.
Given the severe fiscal difficulties being suffered by a number of global governments and the IMF’s involvement in various rescue packages throughout Europe it might be prudent to look at how the IMF is funded given the difficulties being currently faced by its largest single contributor, the US.
Today's preliminary release of Q2 GDP numbers will do nothing to weaken the hands of the doves after numbers showed that the UK economy grew by 0.2% in the second quarter.
Comments by the ONS that growth could have been as high as 0.7% but for the extended Easter break and the after effects of the Japanese earthquake could be construed as a positive, that while growth has been slow, the potential is there.
If the events of the past few months have taught us anything it's that the banking system all over Europe remains in a very vulnerable state in spite of all the government sponsored bail-outs and capital raising that has taken place since 2007.
Concerns about a contagion from Greek banks by way of French and German banks through to Irish, Portuguese and Spanish banks has prompted widespread concerns about the solvency of the whole banking system.
Nearly a year ago the first cracks started to appear in the euro project as Greece had to be dragged kicking and screaming to ask for a bailout, after the country ran out of money to keep funding itself.