By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index nudged lower
on Thursday after the Bank of England as expected made no changes
to its monetary policy. Meanwhile, the Office for Budget
Responsibility more than doubled its growth forecast for the
country for 2013.
The benchmark slipped 0.2% to close at 6,498.33, ending lower
for a fifth straight day.
The U.K.'s central bank offered no surprises at its December
policy meeting, leaving the size of its bond-buying program
unchanged and holding its key lending rate at a record low of 0.5%,
where it has stood since March 2009. The central bank's Monetary
Policy Committee left its asset purchases, the centerpiece of its
quantitative-easing strategy, at 375 billion pounds ($614 billion).
The minutes from the December meeting will be published on
Wednesday, Dec. 18.
The European Central Bank also announced no rate change at its
monthly meeting.
Also on Thursday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne
delivered his Autumn Statement on the economy to members of
parliament, including the latest forecast from the Office for
Budget Responsibility. The OBR more than doubled its growth
forecast for the U.K. for 2013 to 1.4% from an earlier forecast of
0.6% and raised the outlook for 2014 to 2.4% from 1.8%.
Among notable movers in London, the banking sector tracked its
European peers lower. Standard Chartered PLC shaved off 1.1% and
HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBC) dropped 0.5%.
Tesco PLC lost 2% after Fitch Ratings cut the outlook on the
supermarkets chain to negative from stable.
Outside the main index, Drax Group PLC rose 1.6% after J.P.
Morgan Cazenove lifted the utility firm to overweight from
neutral.
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