The Pound made great gains against the Euro, Dollar and Rand in the afternoon’s trading session following the Monetary Policy Committee’s split decision on raising interest rates.
The vote came in at 5-3 just after noon today to keep rates on hold at the record low 0.25%. Kristin Forbes surprisingly found support from two others to raise rates to 0.5%.
Markets were surprised and rightly so since this was the first time since 2011 that there has been 3 dissenters on the committee. Sterling reacted accordingly trading up aggressively against all major currencies, in particular recovering losses against the USD after yesterdays Fed announcement.
This announcement has acted as a smokescreen for the poor retail sales figures which came out in the morning session. Retail sales fell sharply last month pouring more uncertainty on the UK economy as we head into the Brexit negotiations.
Related Insights
Daily Brief – Friday night US Markets
Humphrey Percy
Mon 13 Oct 2025
Friday night US Markets There was an element of the US stock market temporarily running out of oxygen at the heady heights that it had reached and looking for an excuse to take profits/sell. That excuse was provided in spades by POTUS who pronounced that he would implement much higher tariffs against China. That was […]
Daily Brief – UK Non Doms
Humphrey Percy
Mon 27 Oct 2025
UK Non Doms An excellent suggestion from the previous CEO of Rolls Royce, Sir John Rose in a letter that he had published in Saturday’s Financial Times: before it’s too late, offer a flat tax amount to non doms of GBP 500,000. At a stroke that would more than compensate for the disastrous treatment of […]
Daily Brief – UK Growth
Humphrey Percy
Fri 17 Oct 2025
UK Growth To refresh your memories, UK Growth fell 0.1% in July and the hope or more accurately the expectation was that July was an aberration which would be rectified when the men with the clipboards reported on UK Growth for August. In the case of Chancellor Reeves, that expectation was rather more of a prayer […]
