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UK manufacturing growth increased last month, beating expectations, but exports fell according to the latest Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI). The index rose to a three-month high of 52.9 in January from 52.1 in December. Rob Dobson, a senior economist at Markit, commented, “Even after recent easing in the exchange…
Sterling showed some positivity yesterday; the UK economy grew by 0.5% in the three months to the end of December, pushing the annual growth rate for 2015 to 2.2%. This means that despite recent negative sentiment, the UK is still one of the fastest growing developed nations. The reading is…
Overnight, the U.S. Dollar weakened versus other major currencies after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at 0.25-0.50%. The Fed said it was “closely monitoring” global economic and financial developments, but maintained an otherwise upbeat view of the U.S. economy. The possibility of a hike in March is not…
Sterling managed small gains versus the Dollar and Euro despite Mark Carney again ruling out an early rise in interest rates from 0.5%, where they have been stuck since the financial crisis. He was asked if the decision by the US to start tightening monetary policy in December was cause…
Last night the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Mario Draghi spoke on the uncertain 2016 global outlook, and the challenge to ensure that headwinds from it do not blow the European recovery off course. He said the ECB is doing its part to secure a cyclical recovery by fulfilling its price…
We saw a choppy end to last week and we can expect further volatility this week as the markets struggle to get a clearer view of where the majors are heading. Wednesday’s Fed meeting on monetary policy will be the key event. There will no changes to the rate policy…
As expected there were no changes to monetary policy by Mario Draghi at yesterday’s meeting, though he did hint at tweaking the current quantitative easing programme at the central bank’s March meeting. In the press conference, Draghi referenced the downside risk of current global conditions since the start of 2016….
Yesterday’s publication of the UK unemployment rate showed that it had fallen to its lowest rate in more than a decade: 5.1%, but wage growth without bonuses has slowed to 1.9%. This provides temporary relief to Sterling prices but the uncertainty surrounding the “Brexit” remains for now. David Cameron is…
Mark Carney has spoken and made it clear that the UK are nowhere near ready for a rate rise. Originally, he had mentioned that the decision on interest rates would come into contention at the turn of the year, but with volatility in China, depreciation in oil prices and poor…
Sterling is likely to face further headwinds going into this week and to continue to decline from earlier this month should the fundamental developments coming out of the UK weigh on interest rate expectations. Consumer Price Index due on Tuesday is expected to show a reading of 0.2% in December,…