Coming to the end of a long week. My personal view is I think the threshold has now been reached for the Bank of England to intervene in Gilt markets before Monday's market open to cancel its auction of short-dated Gilts, and pause the active sale of Gilts as part of its QT programme. There is a strong argument that the effect of US macroeconomic policy uncertainty, and recent strong US economic data, has got in the way of the UK's monetary transmission through a rapid tightening of financial conditions. It wouldn't be controversy free with political accusations of parallels to Autumn 2022, and claims the Bank is helping finance a fiscal overstretch. But it is the right thing to do for the UK economy.

So far the financial market response to the UK Budget is becalmed. Gilt yields lower, spreads modestly narrower and most GBP softness (-0.4%) occurred ahead of statement & Pound remains up on pre-election levels.

What to expect from financial markets on Budget Day. A longish 🧵 on what to look out for - and why so much of macroeconomic significance and relevance to debt markets has been pre-briefed/ leaked…. (1/n)

Rotation out of self employment into payroll employment is one of the lasting legacies of the pandemic. Self employment still down ~15% from late 2019.