Pound Sterling Climbs Today as Bank of England (BoE) Minutes Make No Mention of Cuts

Published: 17 Mar at 4 PM Tags: Euro, Dollar, Pound Sterling, America, UK, Eurozone, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Germany,

Pound Sterling
The Pound has risen dramatically against many of its currency rivals today, in somewhat unusual circumstances.
Rather than being supported by a favourable announcement for industry or the economy, the Pound has instead been raised in appeal by the BoE failing to mention cutting the UK interest rate in its most recent minutes.
Rumours were thick about the potential for talk of cutting, so today’s omission of such a detail has relieved investors in the Pound enormously.
The first piece of UK news to watch out for next week will be the Rightmove house price results for March, which are due to be announced very early on Monday.

US Dollar
Yesterday was a bad day for US Dollar exchange rate movement, as the US currency fell in value against most of its rivals.
This previous performance has been repeated to a greater degree today, with the ‘Buck’ falling even further against the competition.
The trigger for this depreciation has been the Federal Reserve (Fed) stating that only two interest rate hikes are likely to take place in 2016, a target that some economists think is ‘optimistic’.
The biggest US news to come out tomorrow will be the afternoon’s University of Michigan preliminary Confidence score for March, which was expected to rise at the time of writing.

Euro
Euro movement has been mixed today, although for the most part the ‘common currency’ has managed to gain on its currency peers.
Earlier on, the Eurozone inflation rate results showed stagnation at -0.2% on the year for the final annual figure, but this was counteracted by the monthly result rising from -1.4% to 0.2% and the core yearly figure inching up from 0.7% to 0.8%.
Tomorrow morning will first bring the German producer prices for February, which will be followed by the Eurozone’s labour costs on the year in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Current predictions are for producer prices to remain in negative ranges on the month and the year.

Australian Dollar
The Australian Dollar has made gains against many of its rivals today, thanks to some early morning domestic data that exceeded forecasts in a positive way.
This was the unemployment rate for February, which fell from 6% to 5.8% against forecasts of no change.
While the news was definitely an unexpected surprise, the shift from -7.4k to 0.3k for the employment change still fell far short of the predicted 13.5k outcome.
The ‘Aussie’ may be moved tonight by a speech due to take place in Sydney by Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) official Luci Ellis.

New Zealand Dollar
The New Zealand Dollar has charted a similar course to the Australian Dollar today, having been raised in appeal by the last night’s Gross Domestic Product results for the fourth quarter.
While neither the quarterly or annual result rose, they likewise didn’t fall as expected, which produced the same effect as if a statistical increase had actually occurred.
In the near-future, the medium-impact ANZ consumer confidence result on the month in March will be announced; unfortunately, this previously came in at -1.40%.

Canadian Dollar
The Canadian Dollar has fared poorly against all but the US Dollar so far today, with this afternoon’s wholesale sales result for January doing little to inspire action among supporters of the ‘Loonie’.
Forecasts were pessimistic to begin with, but the drop from 1.8% to 0% was a step beyond the 0.3% that had been predicted by economists.
Tomorrow afternoon will bring two chances for the Canadian Dollar to redeem itself, when the January retail sales and February inflation rate results come out.
The most recent forecasts have been for rising sales and monthly inflation, along with a dip in the annual inflation rate for February.
As of Thursday, 17th March 2016, the Pound Sterling currency rates mentioned within this news item were as follows:

GBP EUR exchange rate was 1.2793, GBP USD exchange rate was 1.4476, GBP AUD exchange rate was 1.8928, GBP NZD exchange rate was 2.1171, and GBP CAD exchange rate was 1.8798.

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