We saw Pound to Dollar exchange rates rally last week up to 1.28 (Albeit was only for around 60 seconds) during the Fed meeting where it was announced that there were no further measures for now. My guess is that the market was waiting for more stimulus to be announced to help fuel the recovery in the U.S- but after the speech had finished, we saw GBPUSD exchange rates back down to 1.26- and continued to fall through Friday. By Friday evening GBPUSD was trading in the 1.24 area to then close just above 1.25 at the end of the week.
The reason I haven’t really mentioned GBPEUR is that the exchange rate has been a lot less volatile- we have seen it as high as 1.12 and as low as 1.11- not really any noteworthy movement, unfortunately!
At this point, it is unclear how things will go this week, as there are many catalysts in place to move the market, so if you have an upcoming trade- please see below for a few events that you should be looking out for!
Monday 15th June- EU-UK High-level talks.
PM Johnson and the European Commission President are set to hold talks after several rounds of negotiations that have made little progress- the 1st July deadline to extend the transition period looms ever closer, and markets will be waiting to see how Monday goes to get an indication of how the Brexit situation will unfold.
Also on this day, non-essential businesses will be opening in the UK, this may give Sterling a boost as the economy is finally “reopening”.
Tuesday 16th June- UK Jobs Data.
Consensus forecast is a rate of 4.4% from a previous 3.9%, the claimant count may show a slight improvement due to some restrictions being lifted in May, however, we are not expecting a real look at the UK employment situation until Furlough has ended in October.
Wednesday 17th June- UK CPI (Inflation)
Sluggish inflation is set to continue with the headline figure expected to fall to 0.6% YoY from the previous 0.8% reading. April’s release was the sharpest one month fall in over a decade and took CPI well below the BOE’s 2% target.
Thursday 18th June- Bank of England Meeting.
Interest rates are on hold, but the markets expect the QE program to expand by another 100Bln GBP. Most analysts say risks are to the downside as the UK remains slow to ease lockdown measures. We will still be waiting to hear any mention of negative interest rates in the coming future.
The last thing to keep an eye on is the potential second wave of Covid-19 in the U.S- I am unsure whether the first wave ever actually ended for this to be the “second wave” but I am sure this will be a catalyst for the Dollar this week.