The chart below will give you some idea of just how volatile sterling has been against the dollar in recent times. It has been fascinating to behold, with some massive moves in a matter of minutes. After Thursday’s significant losses against the euro and dollar, the pound actually managed to steady itself and even made some ground against the dollar. It didn’t quite make up for Thursday’s losses, but it was a move in the right direction.
In all probability, investors are just holding off to see what happens next with the government and Brexit. We could yet see a leadership challenge to Theresa May, which would seriously affect Brexit negotiations. There might be a general election and/or even a second referendum. We simply do not know at present and neither does anybody else. That’s sort of what makes it all exciting, but a serious point underlies sterling’s moves – it really does make sense to put risk management strategies in place if you have not yet done so. Anything could happen in the next few months – far better to protect your budgets and profits margins while you still can.
There’s nothing on the schedule today, but that hardly matters given how political events are affecting currency movements. Tomorrow we will see CBI industrial trends orders for November.
