The pound makes a slight recovery against the euro this morning but is still at a low overall. This follows growing fears over the global economy in addition to UK house prices rising above market expectations in this morning’s data release. Against the dollar, sterling continues to weaken.
Nationwide housing prices YoY were announced this morning revealing the UK ‘s house price index has risen to 10%, much higher than markets were anticipating – figures were expected to rise to 9.4%. Nationwide’s chief economist says they are expecting the market to “continue to slow” amidst increasing “pressure on household budgets”.
In the eurozone, inflation is at a record high of 9.1%, fueling fears of a further rate hike by the European Central Bank.
Unemployment is also predicted to make a gentle rise. Markets are predicting euro area unemployment to increase to 6.7 today after remaining at a low of 6.6 for 2 consecutive months – data will be released later this morning.
Lots of interesting data from the US today, including initial Jobless claims, S&P global manufacturing PMI and ISM manufacturing PMI.
This evening, Federal Reserve president, Raphael Bostic will speak on inflation. In the last meeting, the Fed’s Chair Jerome Powell said that “another unusually large increase could be appropriate at next meeting” however that would depend on more data.
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