Currency update – quiet day ahead

Today is what you might call a lull before the storm. There is relatively little data out home or abroad, bar some German trade balance data out first thing this morning. The Pound is still pushing 3.5 year highs against the Euro and is much higher than recent times against most of the other major currencies, including the Dollar, where the 1.60 level is very much in focus.

The storm comes tomorrow, with a raft of data out in the UK, Eurozone, US and further afield. Firstly the UK will find out how industrial production and manufacturing production figures are progressing, together with our trade balance numbers. The big one comes at Midday when the Bank of England announce their monthly policy statement – while interest rates are 99% certain to be held, will there be more Quantitative Easing? Some analysts believe so, and if there is then the 3.5 year highs will almost certainly be a thing of the past.

In the Eurozone, the ECB give their monthly report first thing, which will give us some indication of whether they intend to try and prop up the Euro in light of the almost daily bad news coming out of Greece, Spain, Holland and seemingly the whole area. The US has some jobless figures out around lunchtime, which while not critical will give us some further information following the bad non-farm payroll data last week. There is also trade balance and budget figures from across the pond as well – so for anyone looking to make a payment in US Dollars lunchtime tomorrow might well be one to avoid, as recent US releases have been very variable and we are likely to see quite a bit of volatility.

Further afield we have Australian unemployment figures and New Zealand’s retail sales data – could the Pound’s resurgence against the Antipodean currencies continue?