Foreign Exchange Report : GBP EUR Rate Rejects 6-Month High as China Considers Purchase of Italian Debt and Fears Grow For UK Housing Sector

September 13, 2011 - Written by John Cameron

STORY LINK Foreign Exchange Report : GBP EUR Rate Rejects 6-Month High as China Considers Purchase of Italian Debt and Fears Grow For UK Housing Sector

The Pound Dollar exchange rate (GBP USD) is 1.5768. The Pound Euro exchange rate (GBP EUR) is 1.1620. The Pound Australian Dollar exchange rate (GBP AUD) is 1.5334.

There was a rare piece of good news for investors holding Euro-denominated assets this morning, with reports in the financial press suggesting that China Investment Corporation, (China’s largest sovereign wealth fund), is in talks with Italian officials regarding the purchase of a large number of Italian government bonds. The meetings are said to have taken place over the past four weeks and if the reports prove to be true, then it would be likely that the spreads paid by the Italian government on their bonds would narrow, quietening recent market babble which suggested that the chances of an Italian debt default were rapidly increasing.

Sentiment towards the Euro has improved since the heavy selling pressure that it came under at the start of this week’s session. This saw the GBP EUR pair strongly reject the 6-month high of 1.1724 that it broke to in the early hours of yesterday morning. By the middle of yesterday’s afternoon session in Europe, fears over an imminent default for Greece had eased somewhat and the GBP EUR rate had eased back to trade into the 1.15s.

Elsewhere, last night’s UK RICS House Price survey for August provided further cause for concern about the health of Britain’s key housing sector. The report found that the volume of UK property transactions is slowing dramatically, with each British Estate Agency selling only fourteen properties in the three months leading up to the end of last month. This is the lowest number of transactions per office for over two years.

Concerns over the British housing sector will quickly be placed on the back-burner if this morning’s headline UK CPI inflation figure for August shows at higher than the expected annualised 4.5% level.


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