Week in Currency - 08/04/2024
US and EU data points towards rate cuts.
?
GBP
A quiet week for UK data and news saw little movement for sterling, instead any deviation on price was mainly down to activity on its currency pair. In the little news we did see, saw the pound react positively as Britain’s manufacturing sector expanded more than expected in March. Survey data released on Tuesday by S&P Global, which polls a number of a large manufacturing companies in the UK on activity, reported their first overall growth in activity in 20 months thanks for a recovering domestic demand.
Separate figures showed that UK banks approved the highest number of mortgages in February since September 2022, when new lending slumped due to bond market turmoil caused by Liz Truss’ tenure.
?
USD
The Dollar rose sharply on Friday as official figures showed the U.S. economy generated far more jobs than anticipated during the previous month. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms non-farm payrolls increased by 303,000 in March, economists had expected an increase of 200,000. On the back of Friday's non-farm payrolls report, Fed funds futures moved to fully price in a first 25 basis point interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September.
U.S. manufacturing grew for the first time in 1.5 years in March as production rebounded sharply and new orders increased, but employment at factories remained subdued amid "sizable layoff activity" and prices for inputs pushed higher.
?
领英推荐
EUR
Eurozone inflation fell unexpectedly last month, solidifying the case for the European Central Bank to start lowering borrowing costs from record highs. Consumer price growth in the 20 nations sharing the euro currency slowed to 2.4% in March from 2.6% a month earlier, defying expectations for a steady rate as food, energy and industrial goods prices all pulled the headline figure lower. Underlying inflation, closely watched by the ECB to gauge the durability of price pressures, meanwhile fell to 2.9% from 3.1%, coming below expectations for 3.0%, data from Eurostat, the EU's statistic's agency showed on Wednesday.
?
Have a good week!
?Estuary FX
This week’s key data: