Election/Independence Day
After a relatively short-lived campaign, the day of reckoning has finally arrived in UK politics. Polling stations are already open and won’t close until 10pm tonight. As FX market observers will be used to, news flow on election day is strictly controlled. Analysis of electoral items including the broadcasting of speeches and conjecture surrounding the election is forbidden. The results of any opinion polls also cannot be released whilst the polls remain open. Therefore, aside from your own markings on the ballot paper, the next tangible information you should know on the course of the election will be at 10pm today.
At this time the exit poll will be published. The exit poll looks at a sample of voting patterns across the nation. It’s by no means a sure fire read on how the ballot box will have played out. However, it is the most concrete piece of information that will be available for many hours to come. Decisive results from urban constituencies will be expected to be declared in the early hours of the morning. Those with closer run battles and typically constituencies in rural areas of the UK will take longer to publish. Depending on just how (un)competitive the election proves to be will depend on how soon the outcome of the election is known.
With UK politics all but off the table for the European session today, there are unlikely to be any surprises for GBP today. A quiet day in markets is expected also due in no small part to the US July 4th holiday. Friday will serve as a correction to this tranquillity as the election result becomes clear and a deluge of US data adds duels further Fed speculation. With respect to the latter, a fall in the Dollar in recent sessions has been attributed to the Chicago Fed President, typically dovish FOMC member. He highlighted a residual concern over whether the US labour market will be the variable that provides the pressure to push the Fed into cutting rates. With non-farm payrolls out tomorrow there will be good opportunity to assess the credibility of this concern.
Discussion and Analysis by Charles Porter
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