This week’s trading opened with the pound being sold from its peak rates seen last week. With an absence of any UK data to bolster the pound’s value, traders took this opportunity to take profits from the highs seen last week, supporting the view that we may have found the short term peak against the likes of the Euro and Dollar, with the pound now very vulnerable to any weak data. Sterling lost around half a cent against both the Euro and the US Dollar but do not fear as buying levels are still close to the best since 2012 and 2008 respectively.
Industrial production figures yesterday were very poor for Germany, however the positive Sentix investor confidence figure for the Euro-zone was the one that had an impact. The confidence figure came in at 10.1, up from 8.5 and much better than predicted drop to 7.5.
Today had a little more focus on the pound with the latest Industrial & Manufacturing figures to be announced at 9:30am with a improvement from last month expected by analysts. At 3pm we will then also hear of the updated UK GDP estimate from the NIESR. With no other key data today these results will be the drivers of GBP exchange rates and will need to impress to reverse the negative start to the week.