The start of this week is set to be dominated by the aftershocks of the US’s dramatic Friday. Just as they calm down, we’ll roll right into the Bank of England’s next interest rate decision. Meaning this week will be anything but uneventful.
On Friday, President Donald Trump revealed a new package of trade tariffs that deeply harm some of its closest allies. The Bureau of Labor revealed the US jobs market was massively underperforming – and had been for months. And Trump fired the department’s head of statistics in response, claiming she had rigged the numbers to make him look bad.
In retaliation, the dollar took a nosedive.
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As this news came right at the end of the day on Friday and the weekend has been filled with stories of Republican and Democrat lawmakers decrying the President’s decision, we are likely to see fallout from his lashing out reverberate in the markets throughout today and tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the big news in the UK is all coming on Thursday. The morning will bring the latest update on house prices, revealing whether there has been the drop analysts predict, or if the loosening of bank landing rules is allowing buyers to take out larger mortgages on homes.
Then the afternoon brings the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee’s latest interest rate decision.
While widely predicted to see a cut, the rise of UK inflation and unemployment and the uncertainty brought by Trump’s tariffs may see an interest rate hold.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Thursday also brings Germany’s Balance of Trade data publication. With so much change to import and export costs in the past few months, it will reveal how badly Germany (and by the extension the EU) has been impacted by Trump’s tariffs.
