GBP EUR, GBP USD, GBP AUD & GBP NZD Rates Drop On UK Data

Modified: Wednesday, 9 October 2013 17:52 BST - Written by Ben Hughes

STORY LINK GBP EUR, GBP USD, GBP AUD & GBP NZD Rates Drop On UK Data

The Pound has suffered a poor session so far today, with GBP EUR, GBP USD, GBP AUD and GBP NZD all losing ground. A raft of disappointing British data releases has seen Sterling reverse its IMF-driven gains of last night.

The Pound to Euro exchange rate (GBP/EUR) is currently trading down by 0.36% at 1.1808 GBP/EUR. The Euro to Pound exchange rate is currently trading at 0.8469 EUR/GBP.

This morning’s session brought a triple threat to the Pound Sterling’s recent renaissance in the global currency markets. As the clock ticked on to 0930hrs BST the latest UK Industrial Production, Manufacturing Production and Trade Balance numbers were published and they did not make for pleasant reading for investors holding Sterling-denominated assets.

The Industrial Production numbers for August proved particularly worrisome, confirming that British Industrial output had declined by its largest monthly amount for almost twelve months. Analysts had been anticipating a month on month increase of 0.4%, so the result of -1.1% proved to be highly Sterling-negative. The UK Manufacturing Production figure was even worse with a print of -1.2% versus an anticipated 0.4%.

Meanwhile, the August import / export figures for the British economy, released at the same time, showed a significantly wider than anticipated trade gap for the month before last. The Trade Balance figure revealed a gap between the value of inward and outward shipments of £3.32bn against an expected figure of £2.05bn.

The Pound had started today’s session brightly following yesterday evening’s upward revision to the 2013 UK GDP growth forecast from the International Monetary Fund. The ‘IMF Bounce’ proved to be short-lived for Sterling – this morning’s triple disappointment saw to that. The Pound euro exchange rate (GBP/EUR) tumbled from close to the 1.1900 threshold in early trading all the way down into the 1.1700s shortly after the figure. Meanwhile, losses against the Commodity Dollars and the Greenback were of an even greater magnitude, with the Pound Dollar exchange rate (GBP/USD) falling from above the psychologically important 1.6000 level back into the 1.5900s and the GBP AUD & GBP NZD exchange rates giving up almost 1% of their value on the day.

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