Quiet day, busy week for currency markets

Last week was a quiet one in currency markets, particularly for GBP-EUR which saw movement of less than a cent through the whole week. The notable exception was the US Dollar, which continued to strengthen, on the back of continued expectations of the end of the US equivalent of Quantitative Easing. The US currency was at its most expensive for a month.

This week we have a busy schedule of data due out, although none of it comes today. If you have been considering fixing a rate for your transaction, request a quote today and assess your options. Tomorrow the main monthly UK inflation figures are out at 9.30am, and Wednesday we have the minutes of the recent Bank of England committee meeting, before the first revision of Q1 GDP on Thursday. These are all key news releases for the UK economy and the Pound. Previous revisions to GDP have tended to be in the wrong direction, and perhaps it would be no surprise to see this happen again given the surprisingly good GDP release last month. Of course, any indications that another recession was closer than we thought, would be likely to impact negatively on sterling.

With little other data due out today, today could be the calm before the storm of a volatile week. In other news this morning, David Cameron has warned the UK’s overseas territories to ‘get their house in order’ and sign up to international treaties on tax. Regular readers will be pleased to know that Currency Index pays all its tax in the UK and has no imminent plans to move to the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, although we can of course transfer US Dollars and Swiss Francs at better rates than the banks.