Morning Bulletin

Yesterday

Sterling lost ground on both the euro and the US dollar yesterday with GBP/EUR briefly trading a 4-month low at 1.1223.
- GBP/EUR opened at 1.13 and fell by 0.47% to close at 1.1246.
- GBP/USD fell by 0.9% after opening at 1.3234 and closing at 1.3114.
Sterling’s losses were as a result of the government only narrowly avoiding defeats on key Brexit legislation in recent days which further undermined confidence in the government’s ability to pass the required legislation to deliver a smooth Brexit. (PoundSterlingLive)
The Pound’s losses came despite a solid jobs report which came in as expected supported market expectations for an interest rate hike next month.
- Average earnings 3m/y came in at 2.5% as expected.
- Claimant count change was higher than expected at 7.8K vs 2.3K.
- Unemployment rate came in at 4.2% as expected.
Elsewhere. Canadian manufacturing sales m/m came in at 1.4%, US capacity utilisation rate came in at 78.0%, slightly short of expectations of 78.4%. US industrial production m/m came in better than expected at 0.6% vs 0.5%.
US President Donald Trump and reversed his remark on Russian election meddling and now says that he accepts US intelligence conclusions.

Overnight

New Zealand GDT Price Index came in at -1.7%.
GBP/AUD, GBP/NZD and GBP/JPY are currently trading at 1.7803, 1.9373 and 147.91.

Today

We have another busy morning for the UK with inflation data due at 9.30am.
PM May will also address Conservative MPs later amid bitter divisions in their ranks over her Brexit policy (BBC).
At 10am we will see final CPI from the Eurozone before US building permits and housing starts from the US.