Last week saw the Pound slide back across the board

29 October, 2018

Tom Arnold

Last week saw the Pound slide back across the board amid increased speculation that a No Deal Brexit was becoming a more likely result of the negotiations. Various parties on both sides have signified No Deal is increasingly likely, with each side talking about the plans they would need to have in place to deal with that eventuality. In particular, the focus was the port situation in Calais, with some suggestions that the French might close the border creating huge backlogs and potentially destroying the UK’s food exporting industry.

The week ahead is incredibly busy for economic releases with the UK Budget today kicking things off, followed by various Ecostats midweek, before the Bank of England takes centre stage on Thursday, with their monthly policy statement, and the US finish things off with Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday. Typically, the UK Budget has a limited impact on the currency markets, but with Chancellor Hammond expected to use his speech to essentially threaten the Tory Brexiteers into towing the line, it could have more of an impact than usual – especially the fallout after the speech.

The Bank of England is not really expected to take any action on Thursday but depending on what happens with the budget we would likely expect some comment from Governor Carney in his speech afterwards.

And Non-Farm Payrolls is always critical in the US… The Dollar is on a charge at the moment, and this could definitely halt that charge or provide further momentum depending on the figure.

Monday
UK Annual Budget
UK Mortgage Approvals
US Personal Expenditures

Tuesday
European GDP

Wednesday
UK Consumer Confidence
Australian CPI Inflation
European Unemployment
European CPI Inflation

Thursday
UK House Price Index
Bank of England Interest Rate Decision + Monetary Policy Statement
US Jobless Claims

Friday
European Manufacturing PMI
UK Construction PMI
US Non-Farm Payrolls
US Unemployment Rate

With so much going on this week it is vitally important you stay in close contact with your CI account manager to be kept informed of exactly what is happening and exactly what impact this could have on your upcoming currency requirement.