In a statement accompanying the announcement that it had held rates at 0.5% and QE at £375bn, the Bank said “the implied rise in the expected future path of Bank rate was not warranted by the recent developments in the domestic economy”.

The suggestion that investors had got ahead of themselves pushed the FTSE 100 up by a further 50 points to 6,344. Benchmark 10-year gilt yields fell from 2.42% to 2.35%, while sterling dropped by more than a cent against the dollar towards the $1.51 mark.

The Bank will provide an assessment of the benefits of providing “forward guidance” to markets when it publishes its next quarterly inflation report in August – though today’s statement appears to do just that.

This assessment will also “have an important bearing on the [Monetary Policy Committee’s] policy discussions in August”, the BoE said today.

Carney was expected to withdraw from this morning’s vote on QE, instead choosing to monitor economic progress before declaring his hand next month.

The MPC is likely to have voted 6-2, having been split 6-3 for the past four months prior to ex-governor Mervyn King’s departure in June.

Voting decisions will not be known for a further two weeks.

“At its meeting today, the Committee noted that the incoming data over the past couple of months had been broadly consistent with the central outlook for output growth and inflation contained in the May Report,” today’s statement said.