By Greg Smith on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP – Resilient economy supports The UK continues to display a resilient economy with strong growth and labour markets approaching full employment. Fourth quarter GDP growth came in at 0.4%, giving overall growth of 1.7% for 2017. This is substantially higher than the estimate of just 0.5% after the Brexit referendum and provides support to sterling. […]
By Greg Smith on Monday, March 19th, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP – Eyes on Bank of England The data calendar this week will be dominated by UK inflation, employment, and retail sales. The main focus, however, is going to be on politics and central banks, with the EU Summit at the end of the week. Chancellor Hammond and Bank of England Governor Carney will attend the […]
By Greg Smith on Monday, February 26th, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP – Brexit in focus Bank of England policymakers testified on the inflation report before the Treasury Committee on Wednesday. They reinforced expectations around monetary policy that UK rates will rise further but offered little guidance on timing. UK employment growth was weaker than expected in the fourth quarter, but wage growth accelerated modestly. The […]
By Greg Smith on Monday, February 12th, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP The big news last week was the Bank of England hinting that UK interest rates would increase sooner than markets expected. Growth forecasts were raised and the quarterly inflation report suggested inflation will remain above target. This led sterling higher across the board but comes against a backdrop of weaker economic data. Manufacturing and […]
By Greg Smith on Monday, February 5th, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP It will be the first ‘Super Thursday’ of the year and markets will be closely watching whether any Monetary Policy Committee members vote for a hike. Any shift will alter the markets expectation that we don’t see a rate hike until July. We expect a rate hike later this year but there is a […]
By Greg Smith on Monday, January 29th, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP In May 2016, the Treasury published estimates of how the UK economy react over two years if the UK voted to leave. Relative to a baseline given no change, the prediction was for the economy to be 3.6% smaller, unemployment to rise by 520k, public sector borrowing to be £24bn higher and for sterling […]
By Greg Smith on Monday, January 22nd, 2018
in Market InsightsGBP Sterling continues its strong run against the US Dollar, having come close to 1.40 last week. It remains questionable whether this is sterling strength or Dollar weakness. My view is Dollar weakness, which failed to be dented last week by the poor UK retail sales and inflation figure last week. Inflation was down slightly […]
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