Good morning and welcome to today’s foreign exchange market commentary on 17th of May.
Here are MyCurrencyTransfer.com’s top 5 currency highlights:
- GBP advances on carryover effect from inflation report
- Asmussen cautions Germany on sluggish growth indicators
- USD volatile following Fed’s indications on QE
- Japan firmly on path of progress
- NZD stumbles as growth expectations lowered
CURRENCY RATES OVERVIEW
GBP/EURO – 1.1841
GBP/USD – 1.5242
GBP/CHF – 1.4734
GBP/CAD – 1.5641
GBP/AUD – 1.5639
GBP/ZAR – 14.2895
GBP/JPY – 156.2626
GBP/HKD – 11.8334
GBP/NZD – 1.8647
GBP/SEK – 11.8334
Mid-market rates as of 2013-05-17 12:06 UTC
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Key releases in the next 24 hours that may affect currency date:
Australia: No Data
Europe: EUR ECB Announces 3-Year LTRO Repayment (Euros)
United Kingdom: No Data
New Zealand: No Data
United States of America: USD U. of Michigan Confidence (MAY P), USD Leading Indicators (APR)
China: No Data
Canada: CAD Bank Canada Consumer Price Index Core (YoY) (APR), CAD Consumer Price Index (YoY) (APR), CAD Bank Canada Consumer Price Index Core (MoM) (APR), CAD Consumer Price Index (MoM) (APR)
Japan: No Data
GBP advances on carryover effect from inflation report
With no important data releases coming out over the last two days of this week the GBP hasn’t felt pressure to move as yet. However buoyed by yesterday’s positive inflation outlook from BoE and a drop in the jobless claims figure there has been a carryover upward effect felt in today’s sterling movements. GBP appreciated against the Swiss Franc to the tune of 0.25 % currency and climbed up by 1.26 % against the NZD. Yesterday economic indications from the UK appeared strong and expectations of a QE programme also cooled off. Jobless claims fell for the sixth consecutive month and this has helped improve the GDP figure for Q1 released in April.
Asmussen cautions Germany on sluggish growth indicators
ECB Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen indicated on Friday that the German economy is strong but its government needs to implement reforms in order to stimulate growth in its second quarter. According to data released earlier Germany narrowly escaped a recession with GDP growth in Q1 increasing by 0.1%.
He also cautioned that some EU nations are currently facing a sea of changes that could run to take a decade to have effects and stated that the ECB would be as accommodating with its monetary policy for as long as is required by it. However he noted that the consequences of maintaining low interest rates meant misallocation of resources over time.
USD volatile following Fed’s indications on QE
USD had a volatile run during yesterday’s trading session following a week where it portrayed a steady bullish trend. This was due to San Francisco’s regional Fed Chairman Williams comments earlier on indicating that the Fed’s plans to roll up its quantitative easing programme will begin as early as this summer with a view to doing away with the policy completely by the end of 2013. To add to this a raft of disappointing economic data was released yesterday indicating that housing starts tumbled by 16.5 %. Jobless claims also rose sharply by 32,000 to 360,000 in the week ending on May 11, exceeding expected levels markedly. CPI decreased by 0.4 % (0.3 % expected) after decreasing by 0.2 % in March, making it the biggest drop observed since December 2008, according to Labor Department figures.
Japan firmly on path of progress
Yesterday Japan gave out indications that it is finally on the path of progress after the GDP beat expectations. Today the latest machinery orders data also seems to fall in with the overall trend of beating market expectations. Japan machine orders registered in March increased by 14.2% over the previous month vs. 3.5% expected.
NZD stumbles as growth expectations lowered
NZD (kiwi) eased by 0.13 percent against its Aussie counterpart in the overnight session. According to Finance Minister Bill English the New Zealand economy will only grow 2.3 % in the 2013-2014 period as opposed to initial expectations of 3.0 % growth.
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