The fact that it was on a Friday night that American forces captured President Maduro of Venezuela and announced they would run the country now, has given the currency markets a couple of days to work out the implications.
So far, in early trading the US dollar has strengthened almost across the board, but not to any great degree – only 0.25% to 0.35%. Only the Chinese yuan has fared better. Sterling remains close to a four-month high against USD.
However, this may not be the end of the story and the ongoing implications of the attack are immense. Even if a safe and orderly regime change in Caracas can be organised from Washington, the potential division of the world into strongman spheres of influence has implications for Taiwan, Ukraine, eastern Europe and even Greenland, part of Denmark. Moreover, Venezuela is not the only huge oil producer in play, with ongoing protests in Iran.
Back to more mundane economic events, and Friday’s final results for the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) were a bit of a disaster all round, almost all being downgraded from their earlier estimates. The USA, UK, Spain, Italy and Germany all saw fading optimism among manufacturing business leaders in December. We’ve got more PMI data out tomorrow in different industrial sectors, but will it be as negative?
While looking into the crystal ball, a survey of economists in The Times predicted fairly modest cuts in the Fed’s interest rate, with 88% of respondents predicting rates remaining at 3% or more in 12 months’ time, despite Trump’s call for swingeing cuts.
Another question for the markets is whether a 45-minute interview with the Prime Minister will do anything to shore up his position. Sir Keir Starmer warned against leadership challenges, saying they would simply gift the next election to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. One thing he was clear in was aligning Britain closer to Europe’s single market, and this could support sterling.
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