In the early hours of this morning, the Pound to Euro exchange rate hit a fresh annual low of 1.1385, which is the lowest level the pair has traded at in close to 20 months.
The weak start to this week’s trading follows on from a 1.25% drop last week, after Friday’s sell-off pushed the Pound lower off the back of some concerning economic data for the UK.
UK Retail Sales were expected to have dropped by 0.5% in August, but data released on Friday showed a drop of 1.6% month on month. With the cost-of-living crisis a mainstay in the news a drop-off wasn’t a surprise but it was the size of the drop that shocked the currency markets and pushed the Pound lower across the board of major currency pairs.
The Office for National Statistics confirmed that all retail sectors were affected and economic reports such as Friday’s confirm that the economy is likely to slide into a recession.
There are hopes that the newly appointed Prime Ministers’ announcement of a two-year cap on energy prices will help ease the cost-of-living crisis and boost spending but the announcement came this month so moving forward retail sales figures are likely to be followed closely and could impact the Pound’s value as we saw on Friday.
This week both the FED Reserve in the US and the Bank of England here in the UK are expected to hike interest rates. There could be further market movements for the Pound as there is uncertainty regarding how much the Monetary Policy Committee will decide to hike interest rates by.
At the last meeting, the BoE hiked by 0.5% and although it’s likely that they will do the same again, the voting patterns haven’t been unanimous with some favouring a 25-basis point hike and others 75 basis points so this Thursday’s release is certainly worth looking out for.
Should you need assistance with a large currency conversion for the purchase or sale of a property overseas and you would like to discuss these market movements in more detail, please feel free to email me, Joseph Wright on [email protected], and I will be happy to have a chat with you.
You can also request a quote anytime you wish if you would like to compare to your bank or current broker.
