Euro Exchange Rate Today: GBP EUR Drops as Ireland Economy Goes Positive

Modified: Friday, 12 July 2013 12:17 BST - Written by Frank Davies

STORY LINK Euro Exchange Rate Today: GBP EUR Drops as Ireland Economy Goes Positive

Today’s news that leading credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has raised its outlook for the Republic of Ireland’s economy from ‘stable’ to ‘positive’ has provided the euro with a fair wind this morning. The past few weeks have seen some concerns raised amongst investors that the eurozone’s debt crisis was rearing its ugly head once more as the EU/IMF/ECB troika deliberated at length on whether to allot Greece its next tranche of bailout funding. As recently as 2009, Ireland still enjoyed a AAA credit rating from S&P, allowing it the benefit of accessing reasonably cheap credit on the wholesale bond markets. The intervening years have not been kind to the Republic as debt became significantly more expensive to access for the struggling nation’s economy. Today’s development may prove a turning point in the nation’s recovery.

The move in favour of the single currency sent the Pound to euro exchange rate (currency : GBP EUR) down to as low as 1.1564 earlier – the pair had poked its head above the 1.1600 parapet before the news from S&P. The losses for GBP EUR would surely have been of a greater magnitude were it not for this morning’s announcement by the UK Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) that the number of first time property purchasers being granted mortgage finance had increased to its highest level since 2008 when the global credit crisis began taking a strangle-hold on mortgage lending in the UK. Without new entrants to the property market then it is difficult for house prices to move forward as existing owners simply saw their properties with eachother. Today’s figure from the CML suggests that the outlook for Britain’s property market may be improving, providing hope that Britain’s economy may now convincingly pull away from recession.

Elsewhere, this afternoon’s stand-out data release comes in the US in the form of July’s Michigan Confidence survey. A positive print would be likely to trigger a renaissance for the Greenback sending the GBP USD exchange rate back down towards the 1.5000 level.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

TAGS: American Dollar Forecasts Currency Predictions Dollar Poun Forecasts