weekahead with Currency Index

The week starts off with a surge in US Dollar strength following on from last week’s surprisingly positive comments from Ben Bernanke and the release of the FOMC’s monthly interest rate decision and policy statement. The short version is that the stimulus package that the US has been employing – similar to the Bank of England’s Quantitative Easing policy – is likely coming to an end and the near zero interest rates that have been in place for the last few years are also possibly about to start increasing. Both of these are very positive for the Dollar and as such buying rates for the Dollar and its pegged currencies such as the UAE Dirham (AED) or the Omani Riyal (OMR) are dropping fast – if you have a requirement for any of these, it is probably well worth looking at securing your exchange before things get worse.

In other news, and a little further from home, the Australian Dollar is coming under increasing pressure. Recent interest rate cuts in the zone, comments from the Australian PM that a weakening AUD is beneficial to the Australian economy and bad news on the Far Eastern markets have coupled together to produce the best rates for buying the Ozzie since 2010.

This week starts pretty quietly for data, with nothing of much note until Wednesday when we have some UK inflation hearings from the Treasury Committee and US GDP figures. German unemployment and UK GDP are on Thursday and Friday gives us German CPI inflation.

So some pretty serious data towards the end of the week, which could see some significant movement across the major currencies. Watch specifically for the final revision of Q1 GDP in the UK – with positive comments about the UK economy being made by the Chancellor over the weekend and the announcement that all government offices have now agreed to the next round of budget cuts, things could be looking up – the Chancellor also announces his Spending Review on Wednesday after PMQs.

Make sure through it all you stay in close touch with your CI account manager to be kept informed of what’s happening and how it could affect your upcoming need to send money aboard