Crazy Day on the Markets

Yesterday was supposed to be a quiet day for exchange rates, with virtually no important data releases scheduled, but in a reminder of how world events can affect the market, we saw one of the most volatile days in recent memory – which is saying something given the turmoil we have seen for much of this year.

The problems in China and ‘currency wars’ in the far east suddenly spread to western markets, after stock exchange indices bombing (the Dow Jones at one point was showing its biggest single day fall in history) went on to influence values of currencies. The US Dollar weakened further, and the surprise beneficiary was the Euro, which soared in value even further after its gains last week. Against the Pound, at one point the rate for buying Euros was 3.5% worse than on Sunday night, and against the Dollar we saw similar swings.

Some far eastern currencies also weakened significantly, with rates for sending money to Singapore for example reaching their cheapest level in 5 years.

The soundbite of “China’s Black Monday” was being widely used yesterday, as fears of slowing Chinese growth affecting prosperity around the world spread panic through the financial markets. Whether the shockwaves will continue to wreak havoc or not is of course unknown, but it seems clear for now that the Euro in particular has significant momentum and could easily continue to gain in price against sterling, having broken several technical resistance levels in recent days.

Today’s currency outlook

While headlines and rate movements are likely to be dominated by events in Asia, we have already had German GDP figures this morning which came out as expected (1.6%). The Euro rate has recovered over 1% from its low point yesterday, and there is no other UK or European data after 9am today. Later US home sales and New Zealand trade balance figures are released, but for those of you looking to buy or sell Euros or US Dollars, we would recommend speaking to your personal currency expert at Currency Index for the latest news and rates. You can register for a trading facility, without any cost or obligation, if you have not done so already – just click on the link at the top of this page.