Greeks Make Repayment Markets Reaction Short lived

Overnight on Monday the Greeks managed to make their payment to the IMF staving off their creditors for another short period allowing the euro to claw back some of its losses against the pound we have seen since the election results came in favouring the Conservatives. These gains were short lived however as Tuesday brought the usual round of ecostats from around the world kicking off in the UK with industrial and manufacturing production figures.

The pound rallied as the data came out with a full house of better than forecast figures showing industrial up by half a percent on expectations and manufacturing beating by just 0.1 percent YoY. This was enough to push up the pound across the board as it managed to make 2 cents against the ailing single currency and push up a cent against the US dollar, adding to the previous day, making a 3 cent gain in total. The gains against the greenback were halted as the monthly budget statement showed higher than expected in late evening trade, giving some respite to the US which has lost 7 percent of its value in the past 4 weeks. Putting this into perspective, buying a holiday home in the Florida sun for $300,000 this time last month would have cost you an extra £14,500!

So on to Wednesday and we have already had German inflation figures missing expectations so sterling has been on the front foot so far today. We also have German GDP still to come along with French and Spanish inflations reports and Italian GDP. More interesting to investors will be UK unemployment data and the Bank of England inflation report which come mid-morning. Following this is the European Central Banks monetary policy accounts meeting with the day concluding across the pond as US retail sales and import/export data and overnight retail sales from New Zealand.

Plenty to go on today ahead of Ascension Day tomorrow in parts of Europe including Switzerland and Germany so we could be in line for some exciting trading opportunities. Ensure you dont miss out and contact one of the CI team today.