Good morning readers,
The trading floor has gone extremely busy this morning with a surprise dip in UK GDP figures. Data has shown that the UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the first three months of
the year, more than previously thought. Last month’s initial estimate from the Office for National Statistics showed a contraction of 0.2%. The first quarter’s growth figure will be revised again next month.
Most analysts were not expecting to see a revision down so this is fairly worrying for those of you that require selling the pound. Although the markets have not yet really reacted this will weigh heavily on the pound going forward.
The pound lost up to half a cent against the Euro bottoming out at 1.2457 and the pound is significantly down over the last 2 weeks against the USD and we just hit a low of 1.5637 earlier. With no real solutions to have come out of the EU summit last night sterling will be under pressure over the next week and this could leave real scope for the Bank of England to look at further monetary easing at the beginning of June. This would more than likely do more harm than good to sterling.
If you are buying USD, EUR, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD & ZAR I would seriously look at your options of securing your currency before the next Bank of England meeting at the beginning of June. With some fantastic trading levels against these currencies you may be prudent at securing your funds on a forward contract or if you do want to take a gamble at least place a limit in the market.
If you are selling Euros unfortunately I do not think this news will bring the pound back down to 1.20 as the issues in Europe are outweighing those in the UK. I feel that all you can do is try to exchange your funds when there is a brief spike in the market. A lot of my clients were able to do this when the pound recently fell down to 1.2350 as we were able to inform them of this small window of opportunity.
If you would like more information on any of the above contract types please feel free to email me with your requirement and a contact number so I can call you to discuss your options going forward. [email protected] If you would like to call me there is a number on the side of this page that will bring you through to the trading floor. Just ask for Ben Amrany
Ben Amrany