Latest Currency News Continued - page 526

This afternoon’s Canadian labour market figures were far more positive in tone than their counterpart numbers from the US. The overall level of unemployment in Canada dropped to 6.9% last month, while almost 43,000 new jobs were generated in Canada during March. The Loonie has surged against Sterling as a consequence, sending the Pound Canadian Dollar exchange rate down to as low as 1.8155 GBP/CAD this afternoon. The economic...

The POUND STERLING (currency:GBP)traded on an even keel during yesterday’s session, with other currencies, and in particular the euro, hogging the limelight. The March editions of PMI surveys of the whole UK economy and its services sector both disappointed, and with no further data of significance due for publication in Britain this week Sterling may struggle today. The nagging fear still remains that the Bank of England would...

This afternoon’s Press Conference from the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi yielded comments which could hurt the euro for months to come. The questions and answers session, which followed the European Central Bank’s announcement that it would be maintaining its key lending rate at its current record low of 0.25%, included a bomb shell development. The ECB is actively considering its own version of Quantitative...

Trading in the global currency markets during yesterday’s session was subdued as investors sat on their hands ahead of a raft of keynote data releases across the eurozone and the UK today. A pair of PMI services readings from mainland Europe and Britain lead the way at 0930hrs BST. Analysts’ expectations are for the eurozone version to be outperformed by its UK counterpart, so expect the Pound to land the first blow of the...

This afternoon has been a distinctly good news / bad news one for the US economy, with March’s private sector Employment Change figure coming out slightly below expectations, whole February’s numbers pointed to a larger than expected increase in Factory Orders in the States. The fallout has seen the Pound US Dollar exchange rate peel back slightly; the pair touched off 1.6618 GBP/USD earlier on, having been trading at close to...

The POUND STERLING (currency:GBP) had a mediocre day on the markets yesterday after the publication of a disappointing PMI survey of the domestic manufacturing sector. The Pound has been struggling since the release of worrying data on Monday which suggested that the level of UK mortgage approvals had dropped for the first time for a year. The nagging fear that the Bank of England may be set to begin ‘talking down’ the Pound...

Currency market focus settled firmly on Australia during the overnight session, with the Antipodean nation’s Reserve Bank making its latest policy announcement. The Australian Dollar was well supported in the aftermath of the RBA’s announcement that it would be maintaining its Official Cash Rate at its current level of 2.50%. As expected, it wasn’t the decision which proved to be market moving, but comments from Reserve...

The Canadian Dollar (currency:CAD) was the big winner in the global currency markets yesterday afternoon following the publication of stronger than anticipated Gross Domestic Product growth data in Canada. January’s monthly increase of 0.5% in output from the export-driven Canadian economy cancelled out December’s drop of 0.5% in activity levels, suggesting that economic conditions are improving in the North American economy...

The EURO (currency:EUR) suffered a blow earlier today when official figures revealed that the level of inflation in the eurozone tumbled to 0.5% this month – down from February’s 0.7% reading. The news increases the chances that the European Central Bank will announce a further easing of its monetary policy on Thursday – a move which would hit the single currency hard. In the meantime, tomorrow morning’s German...

Dual structural deficits at the heart of British economy threaten to hamper the Pound Sterling’s performance as we head into the second quarter of 2014. The UK Office of National statistics published worrying figures on Friday which revealed that Britain’s trade deficit during the final three months of 2013 was running at a higher than anticipated level of £22.4bn. The print was only slightly lower than the UK’s record...