Sterling weakens against majority of currencies

Published: 25 June, 2012

Sterling had a poor day on Friday weakening off against the majority of currencies with trading volumes low due to the lack of data released globally.

Currency rates - June 25

EURO/GBP - 1.2439
US$/GBP - 1.5582
CHF/GBP - 1.4962
CAN$/GBP - 1.5985
AUS$/GBP - 1.5556
ZAR/GBP - 13.1381
JPY/GBP - 124.64
HKD/GBP - 12.082
NZD/GBP - 1.9768
SEK/GBP - 10.9759
AED/GBP - 5.7178
US$/EURO - 1.2498
INR/GBP - 87.94

Sterling has been trading in a fairly narrow range against the € [1.23 to 1.245] and against the US$ [1.55 -1.575] for the last couple of weeks and we wait to see what catalyst will cause it to break out of these fairly narrow ranges. A fairly full economic calendar in the UK this week includes public sector net borrowing figures, the inflation report hearing and current account figures. The Governor of the Bank of England is also speaking later this week.

The euro had a mixed day on Friday as a growth package of €130 billion was agreed by European leaders; however, very few details have been released. The European Central Bank also announced that it was relaxing the collateral rules for a greater number of assets to help the banking sector. On a more negative note, German business climate data was worse than expected. The main news this week will revolve around the EU Economic Summit towards the end of the week which could cause a lot of volatility if any shock announcements are made. The markets will also pay close attention to the bench mark 10 year Italian bond auction this week, which will give a clear indication of investors' confidence in the nation.

The US dollar was quite weak on Friday dropping against the majority of currencies despite very little data being released. It is another busy week for data in the US which includes key releases in the form of the number of new homes sold, the number of homes pending sale, the change in the number of people claiming unemployment benefits, consumer confidence figures and core durable goods orders.

Elsewhere, the Japanese yen was particularly weak on Friday as speculation started to mount that its central bank may look to loosen its monetary policy shortly. Canadian inflation data was also lower than expected. The main releases this week are business confidence figures from New Zealand and GDP data from Canada.

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