Currency News: UK daily forex news and forecasts

The POUND STERLING started the day off on a firm footing, but has subsequently leaked support. This morning’s revised UK GDP data for Q1 confirmed the Office of National Statistic’s initial growth estimates for the first three months of this year were accurate. This left investors to concentrate on this week’s Sterling-negative UK inflation and retail sales numbers. The outlook for the Pound is NEUTRAL TO NEGATIVE. The...

Price action in the global currency markets yesterday afternoon was determined by a public statement from the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The head of America’s central bank had some interesting comments to make which had an unexpected effect on price action for several of the world’s major currencies. Bernanke was addressing Congress’s Joint Economic Committee and committee members were keen to learn his...

The Pound Sterling has come under heavy selling pressure during this morning’s European session, thanks to a raft of disappointing UK data releases. The most prominent of these was last month’s British Retail Sales data which showed a surprise drop off of 1.3% compared with the previous month. Analysts had been anticipating an annualised print of 1.8% for the closely watched shop sales number – the result of only 0.2% sent...

Today’s session promises to be a market-moving day for one currency in particular – the US Dollar. A brace of risk events in North America are set to dominate proceedings, with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s appearance before the US Congress’s Joint Economic Committee this afternoon set to be closely monitored by currency market participants. Ostensibly, Bernanke’s speech will focus on the condition of the real...

This morning’s main event in the global currency markets came in the form of the publication of the latest headline inflation data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS). The April Consumer Price Index figure showed at significantly below the expected annualised level of 2.6%. The year-on-year print of 2.4% was considerably lower than March’s 2.8% showing, suggesting that price pressures in the British economy are...

This morning’s session, from the perspective of the Pound Sterling, at least, is likely to be dominated by the release of a raft of price data which may alter investors’ perspective on the future direction of the Bank of England’s monetary policy. The key headline figure to look out for comes in the form of April’s annualised Consumer Price Index figure, purely and simply because it is the benchmark which the British...

This morning’s report from the Ernst & Young Item Club which found that the real cost to the UK economy of high levels of inflation since 2010 has been £10bn. The news has held back the POUND STERLING on the day. The latest Rightmove House Price survey, released overnight, has done little to improve investor sentiment towards Sterling. The Pound is expected to trade on a NEUTRAL TO NEGATIVE bias in the lead-up to...

A press release from leading credit ratings agency Moody’s Investor Services, released during Friday’s session, spelled good news for Turkey and for the Turkish Lira. Moody’s announced that they had upgraded their credit rating of the Mediterranean nation’s sovereign debt to Baa3. The move means that Turkish bonds are now considered to be of ‘investment standard’, allowing them to be bought up by a large number of...

A light schedule of data releases in the global economy have made for limited price action in the currency markets so far today. Perhaps the major driver amongst the investment community at the moment is the ongoing situation in Syria, where evidence has emerged within the past few days that the ruling Assad regimes has apparently used chemical weapons against civilians. Although the international community is yet to confirm this...

The fortunes of the US Dollar and conditions in America’s vast labour market have been intertwined since the Federal Reserve stated last month that it would not be calling a halt to its controversial Quantitative Easing programme until the jobs situation in the States had improved considerably. This set up means that any employment data in the US is almost guaranteed to be market-moving. Yesterday afternoon’s European session...