While most of us were enjoying our beauty sleep through last night, people across America were casting and/or counting votes for the 2018 midterm elections. The full results are still filtering through, but it has been confirmed that Democrats have secured a majority in the House, meaning they now take control of the lower chamber of Congress. However, it wasn’t all bad for the Republicans, who managed to tighten their grip on the Senate.
Trump declared the result a ‘tremendous success’ and while it is true that it could have been much worse for his party, the result paves the way for Democrats to block Trump’s agenda and investigate him. Ultimately, the American public has decided it does not want Trump to have absolute power in Washington. It is expected that there will be a flurry of investigations into Trump and his administration now. The next few months could be extremely interesting.
The pound strengthened to a two-week high against the dollar yesterday following Dominic Raab’s ‘thumbs up’ comment. The Brexit minister was leaving Downing Street after a Cabinet meeting, looked to reporters and said the words ‘thumbs up’. Remarkably, the pound jumped against the dollar immediately after. Ridiculous. Still the move has continued this morning and the pound is currently well above $1.31.
In addition to reaction from the midterm results, we will see industrial production figures from Germany, as well as retail sales from the eurozone and the Halifax house price index for October. It will be fascinating to see what, if anything, happens to Trump in the near future, as well as whether the pound can continue its recent moves against the euro and dollar.
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