The pound enters the week stronger against the euro and US dollar compared to this time last Monday, with gains of approximately 1.35% and 0.77% respectively.
According to 10th World Happiness Report, the Covid 19 pandemic has not affected humankind’s happiness. Researchers interviewed over 100,000 people from 137 countries and found “significantly higher levels of benevolence in all global regions” than before the pandemic.
Some of the top 20 countries ranked by happiness include Sweden at number 5 , New Zealand at number 10 and Finland at number 1 with a score of 7.80.
Investors will have plenty economic releases to digest over the course of this week. We’ve just seen Germany’s latest PPI for February which revealed that producer price inflation eased to its lowest level in 17 months to 15.8% amid softer rises in energy prices.
This was slightly above market forecasts of 14.5% and marked the fifth consecutive month of declines.
At 4pm today the ECB’s President Christine Lagarde will speak and tomorrow, market watchers will see the latest ZEW economic sentiment index from Germany.
This week will be a busy one for pound-watchers, with the UK’s inflation rate out on Wednesday, followed by the Bank of England’s interest decision on Thursday.
For US dollar-watchers, there will be several key releases this week however, all eyes will be on the Federal Reserve for its interest decision on Wednesday.
In the stock markets, European equities headed for a lower open on Monday following recent concerns over the global financial system.
Over the weekend, the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes, including the ‘unlawful deportation’ of Ukrainian children.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy estimated that the number of deported children exceeded 16,000 and said that the warrants for Putin’s arrest represented “an historic decision which will lead to historical accountability”.
Many will be keeping a close eye on how this week’s political and economic events unfold, and most importantly, if they will trigger further volatility within the currency markets.
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