Sterling slide continues

Yesterday the pound continued its slide across the board, following on from the selling pressure it found itself under from Tuesday, caused by comments from Mark Carney the Bank of England chief. He had suggested in a speech that a Brexit would cause issues for the UK as it would have a negative impact on our current account deficit, among other concerns.

Wednesday we had further negative ecostats to aid the pound on its downward spiral in the shape of Nationwide house price index, which came in 0.3 percent under consensus followed later in the day with mortgage approval stats for December which came in over 15,000 less than anticipated. It seems the run of poor figures is likely to continue, with the only respite the pound has had was caused by euro weakness above anything more sterling positive.

The ponds decline escalated downwards further still after the US posted some new homes sales figures that showed an increase of nearly 11 percent, in comparison with the expected consensus of just 2 percent! The pound proceeded to lose a cent against the greenback while losing the same against the single currency.

The markets had digested all they could from the day and now looked ahead to some Central Bank action, firstly froM the Fed and then from down under and the RBNZ. The excitement was short lived though as first the Fed held fire stating concerns over the global economic outlook although didn’t rule out another rate rise, whilst the Kiwis bankers also held firm, keeping rates at 2.5 percent but did hint that further easing may be required giving way for the Kiwi to lose 2 cents against sterling in the following hour.

So onto today and we have a few key releases, most notably GDP for the UK at 9.30am. Then come lunchtime and the US release durable goods orders, followed later at 3pm by house sales figures. Overnight Japanese unemployment figures get released followed by the Bank of Japan interest rate meeting and policy statement, where no expectations are given so markets could react should we see a surprise move from the ultra low 0.10 percent rates. Finally German retail sales are out early doors Friday morning before trade begins.

Plenty to affect your transfer over the next 24 hours so given the current trend, is it worth risking the wait? If unsure, speak to myself or one of the Currency Index team today for some friendly guidance.