Sterling drifted yesterday against the US dollar and euro, but the movements were small and the start of the week has had a feeling of waiting for bigger news.
That news will come tomorrow with the inflation data, and rarely has been a number more keenly awaited by the markets. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said yesterday that it was falling more slowly than he hoped. The UK is now a clear outlier, currently at 8.7% while the US has 3% inflation.
In the meantime there was news yesterday from Europe, with Italian inflation confirmed as having fallen from 7.6% to 6.4% between May and June.
Three members of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) interest rate committee were talking yesterday, and while their speeches were not headline news the euro did strengthen by between 0.25 and 0.5% against most major rivals.
China’s economy was revealed to have stalled, or at least expanded at just 0.8% between April and June, a sharp deceleration from the 2.2% in the first quarter of the year.
And in the UK, more strike action has been announced by railway workers and by airport workers at Gatwick.
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