After a sharp rise that brought the pound tantalisingly close to breaching August’s post-pandemic high against the euro, sterling has traded southwards. There was a similar direction of travel against the dollar but GBP/USD remains a good 5% off its midsummer highs.
This morning’s data shows retail sales falling by 1.5% year on year for September – according to BRC Retail Sales Monitor – but the bigger headlines are about the fall in unemployment in September, the 6% rise in earnings (although this is below last month’s 6.8%) and the number of job vacancies at over one million.
It all looks to be piling on inflationary pressures, and after a hawkish note on interest rates was expressed by one Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member last week, comments by more members of the MPC later this week will be closely monitored.
Tomorrow morning we have some vital industrial data releases including GDP.
