Good morning readers and I hope you had a great weekend!
This week is due to be key for the Pound with some extremely important data releases due out over the next few days.
Tomorrow we see a busy morning with inflationary and public sector net borrowing data out at 09:30am. Should we see inflation continuing to increase then it opens the door slightly wider for a rate increase as this is one of the routes the Bank of England can take to tackle high inflation, along with this if the countryis now borrowing a huge amount this may knock the Pound back slightly.
Personally it wouldn’t surprise me to see reasonably high figures for inlation but along with this high borrowing too although I would expect the Pound to be up against most major currencies by close of play unless we have any other surprises pop up.
Wednesday is just as important as we have the Bank of England minutes due and all eyes will be on just how many members of the BOE voted in favour of a rate hike, should we see still 3 of the 9 members in favour the markets may not see too much movement howver any change to this figure (higher leading to strength and lower weakness) then I would expect an extremely volatile day.
A rate hike is generally seen as positive for the currency concerned and markets move on rumour as well as fact, the BOE appears to keep on pushing back the potential hike in the U.K and other economies are starting to look like they may be pushing up rates earlier which isn’t great for Sterling.
Finally, Thursday sees retail sales confirming how much was spent on the high street last month, with most of the adverse weather out of the way in the U.K now I expect these to be slightly better.
In short, I can see a better week for Sterling and indeed some better levels of exchange come the end of the week.
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