The pound has been flying high over the past few days, with a 1%-plus improvement against the euro and three-year high against the US dollar.
It is largely clinging on to those gains despite the increasing possibility of the Bank of England not just cutting interest rates by 25 basis points next week, but signalling that those cuts will be stepped up. Investors flee from low interest rates, so if rates fall it would be expected to weaken sterling sooner or later.
To protect your budget from that possibility, lock in today’s GBP/EUR rate with a call to your account manager on 020 8003 4915.
While 100 days of Trump is being marked in reams of newsprint, it is the data that offers the real verdict. Yesterday we heard that there are considerably fewer American jobs available, with job openings down by nearly 300,000 in March.
On the European side, the star of the recent European economy, Spain, recorded a small slackening off its economic growth, with annualised Gross Domestic Product (GDP) slipping to 2.8% following the first quarter of 2025. France’s GDP has just been revealed too, and showed France avoiding recession by the smallest of margins, while inflation has ticked upwards. Germany’s data will be out very shortly.
And what of the UK? It’s a quiet period for data this side of the Channel but we have just heard the Nationwide House Price Index showing a 0.6% fall in the past month – the biggest decline since August 2023.
Good news for home buyers, but if you are looking to sell your UK property to move overseas, can your buyer get a mortgage? We’ll hear more about the state of the UK mortgage market tomorrow.
