Sterling weakens against euro

Published: 06 June, 2012

Sterling weakened against the majority of currencies last week and in particular against the euro as the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) came out worse than expected.

Currency rates - June 6

EURO/GBP - 1.2362
US$/GBP - 1.5445
CHF/GBP - 1.4855
CAN$/GBP - 1.5961
AUS$/GBP - 1.5695
ZAR/GBP - 12.9314
JPY/GBP - 121.86
HKD/GBP - 11.9832
NZD/GBP - 2.0263
SEK/GBP - 11.1121
AED/GBP - 5.6712
US$/EURO - 1.2490
INR/GBP - 85.74

The result has reinforced the negative sentiment currently felt towards the UK's economy. After the double bank holiday the Bank of England's interest rate and asset purchase facility decision will take centre stage this week. Following the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) recent call for the injection of more money into the UK economy as well as the potential need for an interest rate cut as well it will be very interesting to see what action the BoE takes. Other data released includes Construction and the change in the price of goods and raw materials purchased by manufacturers.

The euro faired fairly well on Friday despite the lack of significant data to encourage such a movement as investors sold off positions in the markets. The ECB's rate decision will be announced today which is expected to be kept on hold at 1.00% and the press conference that follows should give some indication of the central banks view on the state of the Euro zone economy. The markets will also play close attention to the Spanish (and to a lesser extent the French) bench mark 10 year bond auctions this week which gives a very clear indication of investors' confidence in a nation.

The US dollar had a mixed day on Friday as extremely poor Non-Farm pay rolls data was released; furthermore, weaker than expected manufacturing PMI and unemployment rate figure all dampened the sentiment in the US and in turn the stability of the global economy. There was very little data released on Monday and non-manufacturing PMI released yesterday came in as expected. The rest of the week's releases includes trade balance data, unemployment claims and the Chairman of the Federal bank is also speaking; all of which should give some indication of the state of the US economy.

Elsewhere, weak Chinese PMI data on Friday provided further evidence that the world's second largest economy is slowing down which sent shock waves through global markets. The Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates yesterday from 3.75% to 3.5% as was widely anticipated; whilst the Bank of Canada kept rates on hold. Other data released yesterday revealed worse than expected change in the number of monthly Canadian building permits. A raft of further data out of Australia this week includes GDP figures released first thing this morning, unemployment data and trade balance figures.

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