Pound Damaged by City’s ‘Brexit’ Fears, UK Construction Stats Out Later This Week
The latest movement for the Pound has been almost universally negative, owing to continued negative reactions to last Friday’s surprise ‘flash crash’ for the UK currency. Major losses have been seen against peers such as the US Dollar, while scattered gains have mainly been caused by weakness on the other side of currency pairings.
Negative news has not been limited to last week, however, as Monday also saw pessimism among investors when Prime Minister Theresa May revealed that MPs would not be able to vote on the terms of ‘Brexit’. While the news implied that UK-EU exit negotiations would be conducted quicker, it also raised the odds of an economically damaging ‘Hard Brexit’ taking place.
The latest UK news has done nothing to raise confidence in the Pound, as Bank of England (BoE) official Anil Kashyap has issued a warning that if key figures and organisations in the UK financial sector desert the City of London on ‘Brexit’ concerns, the centre of UK financial services may find it difficult to recover.
Looking to the future, the Pound could begin on the long road to recovery on Friday when the annual UK August construction output figure is announced; this has a ‘positive’ move from -1.5% to -1.1% expected.
US Dollar Rallies after Turbulent Election, Fed Minutes due Wednesday
The US Dollar has steadily strengthened in appeal during Tuesday’s European trading session, thanks to growing confidence that Donald Trump’s risk-associated plans for the presidency may fail.
Trump’s economic views are considered destabilising by a number of economists, so signs in polls that Hillary Clinton is more likely to win the November 8th election have boosted the US Dollar considerably.
Additional support has come from Fed official Charles Evans, who has stated that while he is mainly focused on seeing national inflation rates rise, hiking the US interest rate in the near-term would be unlikely to destabilise inflation rates in the country; this has further raised the odds of a Fed rate hike taking place in 2016.
The next US economic events to watch out for will come over Wednesday afternoon, when Fed officials William Dudley and Esther George both give speeches.
In the evening, the Fed will release its minutes for September, which if hawkish in tone could once again raise the chances of the Fed increasing the national interest rate in December.
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