Following yesterdays spring statement the pound had a relatively strong day posting gains against most of its majors. At its highest GBP/EUR peaked just shy of 1.13, up from last weeks low of 1.1150 and GBP/USD pushed back close to 1.40.
Philip Hammonds spring statement was relatively well received by the market. During his speech he upgraded projections for growth and predicted falling inflation and borrowing. He claimed the UK economy had reached a turning point and that there was "light at the end of the tunnel"
He went on to tell MP's that growth forecasts were up to 1.5% for this year, up from 1.4% as forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility in November. Forecast for 2019 and 2020 remained the same at 1.3%
As for sterling against the US dollar, again some positive movements were seen during and after the spring statement however the biggest move came following the announcement that the US secretary of state Rex Tillerson had been sacked. The former head of ExxonMobil had a series of public disagreements with President Trump who officially fired Mr Tillerson via Twitter. This news caused a sell off for the dollar, pushing levels back towards 1.40
Should you have an upcoming international money transfer to arrange then looking at today it is relatively light on the data front from the UK's point of view but there is plenty of data this afternoon from across the pond. This comes in the form of US retail sales and business inventories at 13:30. I would also expect the market to continue to react to yesterdays political movements stateside.
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Labels: Euro, GBP/EUR, GBP/USD, international money exchange, Sterling, Tillerson, US Dollar