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EUR / USD The main focus today is in Europe. After the open, Credit Suisse announced that the Saudi National Bank would not be increasing its stake in the troubled bank. The outlook is still uncertain. There was a sharp re-pricing of ECB interest rate expectations with markets considering that…
EUR/USD: Back towards 1.0700, as the decision to increase US interest rates by 25bps rather than 50bps is looking clearer. GBP/USD: Steady around 1.2150, market participants will be looking at the UK budget report. US and Eurozone yields recovery provided support for the pound after a slowdown in wage growth….
The markets scrambled to figure out how monetary policy of major central banks will be affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) given the now exposed vulnerabilities in the financial sector. From a UK perspective, HSBC has bought the UK arm of SVB for £1. No word yet…
GBP is back above 1.21 vs USD after dipping to lows of 1.18 last week. Expectations of an aggressive rate hike from the Fed Reserve meant the dollar rally moved in line with US Treasury bond yields peaking at 10-year highs. Markets began to reprice a peak rate of 6% this year,…
SA Non Farm Payrolls and Unemployment (Feb) released at 13:30 GBP rallies at the end of the week as UK real GDP grows above forecasts Germany YoY Feb Inflation maintains EUR support USD Despite a positive week for the Dollar trading at an average of over 1% growth against Euro…
Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Dhingra stated that many “tightening effects” are still to take hold and over tightening monetary policy poses more risk at this point, adding that a prudent policy would be to hold rates steady. The stance was unsurprising given that she has voted against…
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee member Catherine Mann expressed her concern about the persistence of core inflation and that more needs to be done with interest rates. She added that there could be more Sterling depreciation if hawkish messages from the Federal Reserve and ECB are not yet…
The UK PMI construction index strengthened to a 9-month high in February, business confidence recovered from December’s lows, supply-side difficulties eased, and upward pressure on costs declined to the lowest level since November 2020. Despite the data triggering a slightly more positive assessment of the economy the Pound still struggled…
Friday saw Sterling move back above the 1.2000 level against the dollar and 1.1300 against the Euro. UK services PMI index was revised slightly higher as new orders grew to hit a 9-month high and input costs slowed to a 20-month low. There was further speculation that the government would…
The Office of National Statistics reported that UK job adverts declined in February by 23% compared to last year. The Bank of England reported that businesses are planning to increase prices 5.4% over the next 12 months, the lowest reading since February 2022. Planned wage increases remained unchanged at 5.7%,…