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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Business
Graeme Evans,Michael Hunter and Simon Hunt

FTSE 100 Live 21 March: Index soars by 2%, approaching 12-month high as Bank of England holds interest rates

London’s top-flight stock index has soared amid greater hope of global interest rate cuts coming soon.

The Bank of England has kept its base rate at 5.25%, as was widely expected.

Summer interest rate cut hopes lifted global markets ahead of today’s Bank of England policy decision.

No change in the 5.25% base rate is expected, but traders expect action later in the year after the Federal Reserve last night signalled three cuts in 2024.

Today’s results by Next underlined the optimism as boss Simon Wolfson told investors: “It’s been a long time since we started a year in a more positive frame of mind.”.

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