2018 has hit rock bottom for the Pound, with the largest intraday losses so far this year. Whether the floor ends up being a stable footing from which to begin to recover will be discovered over the coming days, however, as far as today’s European session is concerned, Sterling has failed to catch a sustained bid. Domestic Sterling markets have lost only a few basis points short of 2% against the US Dollar since Theresa May announced the Cabinet’s backing behind her Brexit deal, outside of Number 10 Downing Street, yesterday evening. Whilst the Euro has also faced a headwind as a result of the domestic political instability that has thrown doubt over the capacity of the government to even survive long enough to see the deal go through parliament, the set of 7 resignations over the past 24 hours, due to the controversial deal, has introduced doubt in investors’ minds about the possibility of a Labour government headed by May’s counterpart, Jeremy Corbyn. The left-leaning leader of the opposition party is thought to be bad for the Pound, threatening to undo the progress of fiscal austerity and consolidation that Cameron’s government under the Chancellorship of George Osborne and May’s government under the Exchequer of Phillip Hammond has managed to produce. Moreover, with a similarly divided party vis-à-vis Brexit, the scope of a Labour party to clear up UK-EU politics seems similarly, if not more, limited. The impression today leaves the global FX map with a bold red nose as the United Kingdom possesses the weakest currency on the day. Weak retail sales data, falling short of expectations by some 0.5%, also helped to drive the Pound lower. Emerging markets have taken advantaged of today’s weaker US Dollar and Pound Sterling with the perceived risk profiles of currencies including the South African Rand and Turkish Lira gaining considerable ground.
Today’s Global Market:
Discussion and Analysis by Charles Porter
German Election With just 18 days to go to the German election, tensions are building. The centre right CDU whose leader Friedrich Merz is likely to be the next Chancellor is under fire for proposing a tougher immigration policy. That says his critics is similar to the far right AFD and verboten given the antipathy […]
Harmful, Toxic, Biased and Insecure Well it took less than one week: after the excitement that met the DeepSeek AI application, came the fight back, the negative press and the correct questioning as to whether DeepSeek is safe. Well surprise surprise, it does not tolerate or even answer questions prejudicial to China but there are […]
Mission Driven ECB President Christine Lagarde faced some polite but firm questions in the post 25bp interest rate cut presser yesterday afternoon. Given that Germany, France and Ireland which are all on the EU naughty step have the worst Eurozone economic performances and Eurozone inflation is 2.4% or 4% for services inflation versus GDP growth […]