Sterling strengthened and then weakened yesterday against most currencies, but has started today on a sharp downturn.
It’s been a quiet start of the week for data in the UK, but plenty of central bankers have been talking about the economy, including ECB President Christine Lagarde yesterday and this morning.
In politics, two events with the power to weaken the pound have arisen in the past 24 hours. The British foreign secretary Liz Truss outlined a Bill to bypass the current Northern Ireland protocols. Former Prime Minister Theresa May said the move would be illegal, ineffective and would damage the UK’s standing in the world. She also suggested that European leaders see Boris Johnson as a lame duck.
In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has outlined a plan for a new independence referendum.
On the data front, there is some lower level data from the UK on housing, car sales and final readings for GDP and PMI, but the bigger stories will be coming from the euro side and from central banker speeches.
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