Morning Brief – UK Labour market

UK Labour market

The Bank of England yesterday broke cover to drive the message home that due to the UK’s labour market remaining tight, it was premature to start talking interest rate cuts and it was not just Governor Bailey who was calling for higher for longer interest rates but also his MEPC colleague Jonathan Haskel.

GBP/USD 1.2690.

US Dollar

At a 3 month low earlier in yesterday’s session before levelling off, USD has been hit as the market has unwound long positions ahead of the US and EU inflation data out this week.

EUR/USD 1.0992.

Gibraltar

It may have ceded Gibraltar to the UK three hundred years ago in 1713, but Spain is still at odds with the UK on the border, the status, the governance in fact pretty much everything when it comes to this rock at the end of Europe. In new Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s first big outing, he is on his way to Brussel for discussions with Spain which is pressuring the UK to sign an agreement this week. The last time DC was pressured on Europe back in 2016, it did not go so well.

EUR/JPY 162.22.

Cruising

Normally the risks encountered on a cruise are a surfeit of food or alcohol. However yesterday the cruising market awoke to the news that a couple from Northumberland while enjoying a Mediterranean cruise were shocked while in Marseille that the husband’s toe had suddenly become swollen and purple. The ship’s doctor discovered that a Peruvian Wolf Spider had first bitten the husband and then for good measure laid eggs inside his toe. Not all the eggs were removed resulting in a spider hatching inside the toe which then started eating its way out. Happily, when he returned home his local hospital successfully diagnosed this unusual condition and the Peruvian Wolf Spider was removed then dispatched. Beats a straw donkey as a holiday souvenir.

GBP/EUR 1.1540.

The Times They Are A-Changin 

This day in 2010 Sotheby’s announced the auction of Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics of this song. Bidding was frenzied but Hedge Fund manager Adam Sender won the contest for the notes with a bid of USD 422,500 or GBP 267,400 but….that was when GBP/USD was 1.5800.

Now at 1.26 those lyrics of the 1960’s anthem would set you back GBP335,317. For GBP the times have indeed been changing-mainly in the direction of more expensive Dylan lyrics since 2010.

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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