LONDON, March 22 Reuters Bank of England policymakers will not have looked at Wednesday39;s inflation data with the same enthusiasm as sterling traders, who took advantage of a shock jump to push the pound up, confident that a rate hike this week is now a done deal.

British consumer price inflation CPI rose to 10.4 in February from January39;s 10.1, above all economists39; forecasts in a Reuters poll and almost back to where it was in December.

Markets now see a near 100 chance of the BoE raising rates to 4.25 from 4.0 on Thursday, firming from a roughly 5050 chance earlier this week of policymakers doing nothing in light of the crisis of confidence that has rocked the global banking sector.

The rally in sterling, last up 0.45 at 1.227 , and a 25 basis point jump in twoyear government bond yields were further signs that investors now expect an imminent hike.

While a fall in energy prices is positive in the longer run, prices elsewhere have risen. The problem, said Ben Nicholl, a fund manager at Royal London Asset Management, is inflation in all the wrong places.

Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, rose by 6.2 in February, far above the median forecast of an easing to 5.7 in the Reuters poll.

Core CPI missed by 0.5 that39;s one of the biggest, if not the biggest misses on CPI in the recent series of inflation data. So it39;s a shocker for the Bank of England, particularly given they39;ve been so dovish in their recent messaging, Nicholl said.

The…