Sterling made a bit of a recovery yesterday against the euro, by close to a quarter of a percent, though it lost a similar amount to the US dollar, reaching yet another six-month low.
Indeed, it was the dollar’s day, powered upwards by hopes of an interest rate hike at the Federal Reserve’s 1st November meeting.
In terms of data, there was positivity for the UK with CBI Distributive Trades coming in at -14, a sharp improvement from the near-record-breaking -44 last month, but still a fall, and for the fifth month running.
There were also speeches from several of the European Central Bank’s interest rate setters including Christine Lagarde, president of the ECB. She saw evidence of a slowdown in the eurozone: “Lower demand for euro area exports and the impact of tight financing conditions are dampening growth, including through lower residential and business investment. The services sector, which had been resilient until recently, is now also weakening.” No wonder the single currency suffered, losing between 0.25% and 0.75% against major rivals.
In business news, a report has found that London offices are worth nearly a fifth less than this time last year, the worst drop in major European office markets apart from Amsterdam.
Amazon is investing $4bn in an attempt to compete with ChatGBT, putting the money into Anthropic.
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