Market Commentary 27/3/09
Summary:
Sterling fell against the Dollar and Euro on Thursday after a much weaker figure for UK Retail Sales came out. The figure dived as bad weather and the dire economic conditions kept shoppers off the highstreet. The monthly fall of 109% took the annual groeth rate to 0.4%, its weakest since 1995. By 3pm yesterday, the Pound was down 0.3% against the USD at 1.4508, and down 0.1% against the Euro at .9341 (1.0705).
Alistair Darling has said that spending was needed to fight unemployment and that BoE Govenor Mervyn King agreed everything possible should be done to support growth.
But funding for government stimulus plans still remains a worry and strategists have blamed the opaque BoE gilt buying plans for the fact that the Debt Management Office could not find enough buyers for the 2049 gilt on offer at Wednesdays aucti0n.
Mervyn King muddied the waters with comments to legislators earlier this week that many investors took to mean that there is a significant chance that we will see an early end to the bank’s quantitative easing policy.
|
SPOT Prices |
EUR € / GBP £ |
EUR € / USD $ |
GBP £ / USD $ |
|
Start of Year |
0.8739 |
1.2903 |
1.4771 |
|
Start of Month |
0.8848 |
1.2587 |
1.4223 |
|
Current |
0.9413 |
1.3525 |
1.4360 |
|
Market Sentiment |
EUR € / GBP £ |
EUR € / USD $ |
GBP £ / USD $ |
|
Today |
Up |
Up |
Flat |
|
This week |
Up |
Up |
Up |
|
This month |
Up |
Flat |
Down |
Yesterdays data:
UK Retail Sales fell to 1.9%.
Today’s data:
UK – Nationwide House Prices forecast at -18.1% previous -17.6%
09.30am – UK GDP forecast -1.5% previous -0.7% QoQ
12.30pm – US Core Spending Expenditure forecast at 0.1% previous 0.1%.
12.30pm – US Personal Spending forecast at 0.2 previous 0.6.
fxjunkies 