Although we have now entered the second month of 2019, we are still getting economic data readings from the back-end of last year and yesterday was no exception. In the US, the only release of note was the factory orders figures for November, which dropped by 0.6% month-over-month. This follows a 2.1% drop in October and was below the 0.2% rise the markets had been expecting.
The dollar made some further gains against sterling, although they were not all that dramatic. Still, the greenback has strengthened against the pound for five days of trading on the trot now. The direction of the next big move will almost entirely be dependent on the type of Brexit the markets come to expect, with the outlook changing all the time. We should all know more soon.
Today we will see services, composite and non-manufacturing PMI for January. It will be interesting to see how the readings compare to the same ones in the UK, Germany and the eurozone.
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