Dollar rate recovers after weak job data

While we were all enjoying our bank holiday weekends, US markets were still open on Friday and some worse-than-expected jobs data made the US Dollar a little cheaper, some respite for those of you who have been watching rates for sending money to America drop steadily in recent weeks. The monthly “non-farm payrolls” figure showed that only 126,000 jobs were added to the US economy in March, against expectations of 245,000.

The figures sent the US Dollar lower, giving us the best rates for buying the Greenback for a couple of weeks.

Quiet week ahead for the Pound

This week we have very little important data due out in the UK, with the Bank of England’s monthly interest rate decision on Thursday already a foregone conclusion, and only industrial & manufacturing production on Friday likely to affect the value of the Pound. Therefore events elsewhere, along with the continuing backdrop of instability caused by the ever-nearing General Election, will be more of interest to those of you sending money abroad this week.

Today’s only major news is the Australian interest rate announcement, which was at 5.30am UK time, and as expected the Reserve Bank of Australia kept their headline rate at 2.25%.

For those of you buying Euros, we have seen the GBP-EUR exchange rate drop 6c over the last 3 weeks, despite the seemingly never ending arguments between Greece and Germany which still threaten the Eurozone’s future. Although the new reform package proposed by Greece is yet to be approved by the EU, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis confirmed on Sunday that a €450m repayment due to the IMF on Thursday will be made in time. This has helped to ease tension and perhaps signals that the Greek government are more willing to toe the line with their creditors than their election rhetoric suggested – if this is the case then we would expect to see the value of the Euro continue to increase in the coming weeks.

Rates for buying Euros continued to slide over the Easter weekend and are now at the same level as in late February.