Labour Party takes a hit as MPs resign | Pound remains stable

19 February, 2019

Grace Rae

Markets opened yesterday in a relatively good position, and with the US closed for bank holiday and little data out for the Eurozone and the UK, markets traded fairly flat throughout the day, providing no surprises, maintaining a stable market.

Yesterday’s main news focused on the decision made by a group of seven Labour MP’s who resigned from the Labour party yesterday morning, they followed the resignation with statements explaining that they believe their party had failed to keep its values, failed in their approach to Brexit and that the party has turned into a racist, anti-sematic party. They accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to be on the wrong side of many international issues, and putting party political interest ahead of national interest. Accusing current politics to be broken, so they have chosen to sit in Parliament as a new independent group of MPs.

Sterling opened this week being on the better side of the scale against its majors and as rates have been trading in a sideways trend over the last few weeks, it can be very easy to think the rates could simply improve further but be warned that with the Brexit clock ticking and no new news just yet, there is still every chance the rates will fall back further. Especially if the PM cannot gain any new legally binding guarantees from the EU regarding a temporary backstop, and get her Brexit deal through parliament.

Today could be another quiet day on the markets as most of the potential market moving stats are out this morning. UK post Unemployment Rate, which is expected to remain at 4% , while Average Earnings is expected to improve from 3.3% to 3.4% – both releases due at 09:30, and at 10:00 European ZEW Economic Sentiment Survey is released. We expect that markets will continue to be reactive off any Brexit and political developments, so if you have an upcoming transfer to make – certainly if you need your currency is ahead of the divorce date, then get in touch with the team at CI to be kept up to date on movements.

Ask us about our Limit and Stop Loss contracts. This could be the answer to limiting your risk to markets dropping and help you potentially catch your preferred exchange rate.