Pound loses further ground

As reported yesterday, the Pound has been falling against the Euro as politicians seem likely to iron out the details of Greece’s €86bn third bailout before the Greek parliament is due to pass it through on the 20^th of this month. For once the value of the Euro has been behaving as we might expect, with positive negotiations bringing stability to markets and, unfortunately for those of you sending Euro payments, making the Euro more expensive as things progress. Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has in fact recalled parliament early and MPs are due to debate the finer points today, and could vote the deal through as soon as tomorrow.

The resurgence of the Euro continued yesterday as we saw the Pound lose around another cent against the single currency and with an absence of any major Eurozone data due out until Friday’s inflation numbers, if the Greek deal is voted through tomorrow it seems likely that GBP-EUR rates will continue to fall. The optimism of a boost for the Pound from ‘Super Thursday’ seems like a distant memory already.

UK unemployment today

Back on home shores we have UK unemployment released today, and as with all major UK economic data releases, these will take on added meaning as markets try to work out when the first UK interest rate rise will be. Any positive UK data could be seen as helping the case for an interest rate rise, giving the Pound more strength, and vice versa – so anything below the expected 5.6% figure would be likely to send the Pound lower across the board for example.

There is not much else of note released today, and on Thursday and Friday we have retail sales and jobless claims in the USA as well as those all important European inflation figures on Friday morning.