Sterling Exchange Rates: Pound to Euro, Dollar, Canadian Dollar & New Zealand Dollar Gain on UK Data

April 16, 2014 - Written by Tim Boyer

STORY LINK Sterling Exchange Rates: Pound to Euro, Dollar, Canadian Dollar & New Zealand Dollar Gain on UK Data

The Pound Sterling (currency:GBP) has been the major winner in the global currency markets so far today, sending the Pound Sterling to Euro exchange rate up +0.35% at 1.21518 GBP/EUR, the Pound Sterling to US Dollar exchange rate up +0.44% at 1.67971 GBP/USD and Pound Sterling to Canadian Dollar exchange rate up +0.66% at 1.84945 GBP/CAD. See below for full list

The move in favour of the UK tender followed the publication of British labour market numbers this morning which thrashed analysts’ expectations, showing that the overall level of joblessness in the domestic economy had unexpectedly dropped below the 7.0% threshold for the first time for several years. Analysts had been anticipating a showing of 7.1% for the print, so the 6.9% result provided the Pound with a pronounced boost. UK job creation numbers, published at the same time, also came out above the consensus expectation of economists, showing that 239,000 new positions had been generated during the three months leading up to February of this year.

The UK employment data, which showed that unemployment had dropped to its lowest level for some five years, provoked a bout of broad-based support for the Pound, which outperformed all of the other sixteen most-actively traded global currencies on the day. Sterling put in a particularly strong showing against the New Zealand Dollar, sending the GBP NZD exchange rate up to 1.9561 during the morning session. The move higher for the pair was partly driven by last night’s lower than expected New Zealand inflation figures for Q1 which pointed to a cooling in the rate of price rises in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Economists had expected the annualised CPI inflation figure to point to an acceleration of price rises to 1.7% - the print of 1.5% therefore hurt the Kiwi.

Losses for the New Zealand unit would surely have been of a greater magnitude were it not for Q1 Gross Domestic Product numbers from Chine which showed that economic activity in the world’s second largest economy is still expanding at a highly respectable 7.4%. While the vast Chinese economy continues to move forward, losses for the Kiwi are likely to be limited.

Other Relevant Pound Sterling Exchange Rates (As of: 19:00 GMT 16/04/2014)

The Pound Sterling to Swiss Franc exchange rate is trading up +0.54% at 1.48048 GBP/CHF.
The Pound Sterling to Hong Kong Dollar exchange rate is trading up +0.44% at 13.02552 GBP/HKD.
The Pound Sterling to Israeli Sheqel exchange rate is trading up +0.62% at 5.83706 GBP/ILS.
The Pound Sterling to Japanese Yen exchange rate is trading up +0.79% at 171.73304 GBP/JPY.
The Pound Sterling to Norwegian Krone exchange rate is trading up +0.75% at 10.03377 GBP/NOK.
The Pound Sterling to Polish Zloty exchange rate is trading up +0.43% at 5.09068 GBP/PLN.
The Pound Sterling to Swedish Krona exchange rate is trading up +0.77% at 11.07744 GBP/SEK.
The Pound Sterling to South African Rand exchange rate is trading up +0.4% at 17.73575 GBP/ZAR.

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