The Bank of England has made nearly £10bn in paper profits by buying UK government bonds as part of emergency efforts to pump money into the British economy.
The financial shot in the arm - a buy-back programme that began in March 2009 and involved purchasing nearly £200bn in gilts - has generated gains of £9.7bn for the Bank, according to analysis for the Financial Times. The gains, which would only be realised were the central bank to sell the bonds back to financial markets at current prices, are a surprising twist in central bankers' frantic efforts to head off a deeper recession. The Bank's programme of quantitative easing was designed to expand the money supply in the economy. It bought £198.2bn of gilts between March 2009 and Jan...
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