A Slow Start But Sterling Gains

Monday was the start of a fairly quiet week for ecostats which meant there was little to go on for investors and traders alike.

We had some poor trade balance stats from China, which normally results in a poor trading day for the antipodean currencies and yesterday was no different with a near cent spike down against the pound, adding to the losses for the Aussie, those moving down under benefitted from last week.

Germany released industrial production which came out slightly lower by 0.1 percent, hardly much to worry about but enough to help send the euro lower against the pound and US dollar, although some gain were made once the US markets opened who obviously felt the figure wasn’t that bad helped along by the better than expected Sentix investor sentiment number which posted higher than expected and clearly gave investors stateside a boost towards the single currency.

Swiss inflation and retail sales, generally of low importance came in slightly below forecast but the Swissie being pegged to the euro just traced its path over the day, losing ground in the morning and gaining some back in the afternoon.

For the afternoon we only had Canadian housing starts of any note but despite coming out slightly above expectations, the Loonie was just another in the basket of currencies that lost ground against sterling which won the race after comments from the Bank of England stating “households can withstand higher interest rates”, giving investors a re-kindled enthusiasm for a UK rate hike being in the pipeline.

All in all a good day for those with pounds looking to move across borders, as sterling gains on the rumour rather than the fact again, so what will today bring?

Slightly busier but not much key data. German trade balance and import/export figures first off, followed by UK industrial and manufacturing production at 9.30am. This afternoon the NIESR release their GDP estimate among a raft of low key US data. Overnight tonight we have Aussie home loan and investment lending figures which could add further woe to the Aussie dollar as could Chinese inflation figures.

Stay in touch with your CI currency broker to discuss how these release may affect your upcoming exchange.