The pound continues to weaken against the euro this morning after a seeing record lows last week. Against the dollar, sterling has also declined. In the early hours of this morning GBP/USD was recorded at 1.14, which is just less than half a percent lower than last Monday’s rate.
The Tory leadership race between former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak, and foreign secretary Liz Truss concludes today with the announcement of Britain’s next prime minister at 12:30 this afternoon. First on the list for Britain’s new prime minister will be tackling the UK’s rising energy costs. Analysts are expecting gas prices to soar even higher this week following Russia’s closure of its key Nord stream 1 pipeline on Friday, further tightening the squeeze on eurozone gas supplies.
The latest S&P Global/CIPS UK Services PMI data will be announced at 9:30 this morning. Although the last reading edged down gently from 52.6 to 52.5, the UK services sector still performed much better than markets anticipated (with a reading originally forecast at 52). Today, markets are expecting PMI to hold its position and remain at 52.5 for the second consecutive month.
