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Pound Dollar Exchange Rate GBP USD Edges Higher despite Fed Interest Rate Bets

November 26, 2015 - Written by Toni Johnson

US Dollar Exchange Rate Fluctuates on Mixed Data Releases



The US Dollar (currency : USD) leaked support against the other major global tenders during yesterday’s session following a decidedly mixed bag of American data releases.

The first US data publication of the day came at midday GMT in the form of the latest weekly Mortgage Application figure. Expectations were high following last week’s positive showing of 6.2%, however the result of -3.2% suggested that the previous result may have represented a false dawn.

Durable Goods Orders & Initial Jobless Claims Impress, Will the Fed Hike Rates in December?



The highlight of a raft of US statistics published at 1330hrs GMT was the October edition of the US Durable Goods Orders data. A print of 1.7% was expected from the number which indicates the volume of orders from US market participants for goods expected to last at least three years, (think cars, kitchen goods, plant for manufacturing firms, etc.). The outcome of 3.0% therefore provided Dollar-holders with some considerable grounds for optimism.

Weekly jobs data, published at the same time, again proved to be something of a curate’s egg, with the Initial Jobless Claims element showing a healthy decrease from 272,000 to 260,000, while the Continuing Claims element showed a slight increase from the previous week. The dual statistic failed to give any clear steer on what investors should expect from next week’s all-important US Non-Farm Payrolls data.

Foreign Exchange Alert: GBP-USD Conversion Rate Advances from 1.50 Low



The upshot of the raft of data releases saw futures markets pricing an increased 77.5% likelihood that next month will be the month for US Federal Reserve interest rate ‘lift-off’. However, the Pound Sterling US Dollar still managed to creep upwards from an intraday low of 1.5052 to as high as 1.5128 GBP USD during late trading. The movement was partly driven by UK Chancellor George Osborne’s afternoon announcement that Britain’s growth forecasts were being upped for the next two fiscal years. However, the slight Dollar softness also hinted that investors remain far from 100% convinced that the Fed will be hiking rates for the first time in almost a decade next month.

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