Unveiling 2024: Market Outlook and Key Trends Get your free copy

Pound falls towards new lows on NI border debate

  • Go back to blog home
  • All posts
    All posts|Currency Updates
    All posts|Currency Updates|International Trade
    All posts|International Trade
    Blog
    Central Bank Meetings
    Charities & NGOs
    Currency Updates
    Currency Updates|In The News
    Ecommerce
    Fraud
    FX 101
    In The News
    International Trade
    Podcast
    Press Release
    Product Update
    Security & Fraud
    Special FX Reports
    Special Report
    Weekly Market Update
  • Latest

16 July 2019

Written by
Matthew Ryan

Senior Market Analyst at Ebury. Providing expert currency analysis so small and mid-sized businesses can effectively navigate international markets.

Sterling sank towards a fresh six month low against the US Dollar this morning as both Prime Ministerial candidates in the UK raised fresh concerns over a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

B
oris Johnson and rival Jeremy Hunt both stated on Monday evening that neither would be willing to accept the Northern Irish backstop arrangement as part of a Brexit deal. These comments have concerned investors given that the backstop, designed to prevent a hard border between Northern and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit, needs to be part of any deal according to the EU.

The Pound received little help from this morning’s UK labour data, despite a bounce in earnings growth suggesting that the domestic economy was resilient in the face of Brexit uncertainties. Earning growth accelerated to 3.6% year-on-year in the three months to May excluding bonus and 3.4% including bonuses.

Remarkably, this is around the highest level in eleven years and remains one of the bright spots of the economy that could provide the Bank of England with reason to be slightly more hawkish at upcoming meetings.

More soft German data weighs on Euro

Some weak sentiment data out of Germany kept the Euro on the defensive this morning, which slipped to its lowest level in nearly a week. Both the economic sentiment and current situation indexes from ZEW came in worse than expected in July, the latter of which fell back into negative territory of 1.1.

Despite the generally torrid economic news out of the Euro Area, markets are not getting too carried away, given that the Federal Reserve looks all but certain to cut interest rates at its next meeting later this month. Fed member Evans has suggested in the last few days that the central bank may even need to cut rates on a ‘couple’ of occasions before the year is out.

Attention this afternoon will be on a number of other Fed member speeches, namely Bostic and Bowman. US retail sales could also prove a market mover when released at 12:30 BST.

SHARE