The Bank cut gilt sales to an annualised £20bn a year, well under £50bn, as part of a multi-year plan agreed on 17 September 2026.
The market resolves on the Monetary Policy Summary and the Asset Purchase Facility gilt sales Market Notice published on bankofengland.co.uk at 12:00 BST on 17 September 2026; YES if the MPC's target reduction in the stock of gilts for October 2026 to September 2027 is £50bn or less, and a target of exactly £50bn counts as YES. Baseline: the current target is £70bn for October 2025 to September 2026 (Bank of England Market Notice, 18 September 2025). If the Bank's pages are unavailable, Reuters and BBC News reports of the figure settle it; no figure published that day resolves NO.
We looked at planned decisions on the pace of bond sales since 2019 by the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada. We took only decisions made while markets, governments or economists were publicly asking for a slowdown in the weeks before. For each, we checked whether the bank cut the pace, stopped selling some bonds or ended sales at that decision. We also checked whether the 10-year bond yield was lower 90 days later.