Pound down ahead of UK elections

Last week was a bad week for the pound as it lost ground across the board as we get closer to the election on June 8th. General elections always breed uncertainty which is bad for a currency, however, political events are also not helping currently. Following Teresa Mays U-turn on her social care policy t seems the Conservative party are not as far ahead as first thought – something that was until recently pushing strength to the pound. Fears over a potential hung parliament are increasing as a mid-week poll showed Labour have closed the lead to 5 points behind the Tory party which is causing Sterling weakness over Brexit. Adding to its woes Thursday showed UK GDP growth slowing to 0.2% from a predicted 0.3%. And at present, the Euro is strong amidst hints they are likely to taper their ongoing Q.E programme also only encouraging GBP>EUR rates to drop. Throughout the course of the week, the Pound lost 2 cents against the Euro and 2.5 cents against the Dollar.

This week is a particularly busy week with several key releases before the start of the new month on Thursday, so don’t be surprised if we continue to see big movements in the rate. With concerns increasing over Mays policy’s by the day, and as we get closer to the Uk election we could see the Pound suffer further. And unless you would like to gamble on a huge Tory win we may not see it recover as much as is expected, particularly if as is suggested the ECB reduce their Q.E programme next month.

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Monday
09.00 EUR Money supply & private loans
14.00 EUR ECB President Draghi Speech

Tuesday
07.00 GBP Nationwide housing prices
10.00 EUR Service, Consumer, and Industrial confidence data
13.00 EUR German Inflation data
13.30 USD Personal Income and expenditure data
14.00 USD House price data
21.00 NZD RNBZ financial stability report

Wednesday
00.01 GBP Gfk consumer confidence
07.45 EUR French Inflation data
08.55 EUR German Unemployment and rate change
09.30 GBP UK Net lending, consumer credit & Mortgage approvals
10.00 EUR Unemployment and Inflation
13.30 CAD GDP figures
14.45 USD Chicago Purchasing index & pending home sales
19.00 USD Feds beige book report

Thursday
08.15 CHF Retail Sales
08.55 EUR German market manufacturing PMI
09.00 EUR Markit manufacturing PMI
09.30 GBP Markit manufacturing PMI
13.15 USD ADP unemployment and jobless claims
15.00 USD ISM manufacturing PMI data

Friday
09.30 GBP PMI construction
10.00 EUR Producer Price Index
13.30 USD Non-farm payrolls, unemployment rate and trade balance