HOW HAS THE POUND BEEN PERFORMING?

Against the US Dollar

After some solid gains last week the Pound opened on Monday again in a strong position trading above the 1.3200 level. With the US election still hogging the headlines and Donald Trump taking to twitter to announce “I won” we have no clear sign of when we can expect Joe Biden to be able to get his administration moving.
 
The economic docket kicked off for the week on Tuesday afternoon with the most significant data coming in the form of slightly worse than expected US retail sales figures, followed by FED chair Jerome Powell stating “the pace of improvement seems to be slowing and has been uneven”.
 
On Wednesday morning, the UK posted slightly better than expected CPI figures which helped boost the Pound to it’s high of the week, breaking the 1.3300 barrier before retracting by the end of the session.
 
On Thursday, we again saw data in form of higher than expected unemployment claims in the US help the pound hold ground in the 1.3200 range for the rest of the week.
 
This morning we have seen UK retail sales figures posted at +1.2%, which is slightly down from October with next week’s docket looking a lot busier, so we could expect to see some further volatility for the GBP/USD pair.

 

Against the Euro

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Sterling opened the week at 1.1140 against the Euro with positive Brexit news to start the week. The Sterling market has been relatively upbeat due to David Frost telling PM Boris that "there is a possible landing zone" between Britain and the EU within seven days. despite this, GBP made a small upwards move seeing the weekly highs hit 1.1217. Despite positive October inflation & retail figures, GBP came off after reaching 1.1200, see prices for the rest of the week trade around the 1.1175 region.

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Brexit, Covid & Economic Data

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- If you have US Dollars or Euros to buy or sell please contact the desk. It's important to try and get the timing right with the Pound being very volatile, our desk can try and support to the best we can.

- On going meetings/negotiations with the UK & EU will fluctuate the Pound.

Please note, this can cause a negative impact for Sterling.

Monday:

08:15 EU Italian Markit Manufacturing PMI
08:15 EU Italian Markit Services PMI
08:30 EU German PMI
09:00 EU Markit PMI
09:30 UK Markit Manufacturing PMI
09:30 UK BoE's Haldane Speech
13:30 US Chicago Fed National Activity
14:45 US Markit Manufacturing PMI

Tuesday:

07:00 EU German GDP
09:00 EU German Business Climate
11:00 UK BoE's Haskell Speech
14:00 US Housing Price Starts
14:00 US S&P Case Shiller Home Price
15:00 US Consumer Confidence 

Wednesday:

13:30 US Durable Goods Orders
13:30 US Core Personal Consumption
13:30 US Personal Income
13:30 US Jobless Claims
13:30 US Initial Jobless Claims
15:00 US New Home Sales
19:00 US FOMC Minutes

Thursday:

12:30 EU ECB Monetary Policy Meeting

Friday:

10:00 EU Consumer Confidence
10:00 EU Business Climate