United Kingdom

This morning saw the euro hit a fresh yearly high against the dollar even before the Eurozone PMI data was released, but it has since been heading lower. The euro’s recent strength is almost as if market participants are trying to front-run the European Central Bank or telling it what to do. Speculators and certain German officials for that matter.

Last week was a bad one for the US dollar. Market participants questioned whether it was premature to assume a June rate rise was forthcoming and that the path of future interest rate rises would be the same as those as set out by the FOMC's projections.

What a difference a week makes, this time last week Theresa May’s Conservatives were enjoying a 20-point lead over its nearest rivals Labour. Fast-forward seven days and the Conservative manifesto that was releases last Thursday, has gone down with voters like a lead balloon, and now pollster Yougov is saying that Theresa May only has a 9-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn.

A surge of European stock market volatility abated on Friday, but a down draft which handed continental indices their worst week since the U.S. election keeps attention focused on Washington.

Barring an unexpectedly sharp rally this evening, the dollar is set to end the week significantly lower.

The price of gold fell yesterday as risk sentiment improved following sharp falls in the equity markets the day before. The dollar bounced back thanks to better-than-expected readings in the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index and weekly US unemployment claims while a mini flash crash in the GBP/USD pair also helped to underpin the Dollar Index, which in turn increased the pressure on gold. Today however, the dollar is once again weaker while equities were slightly stronger in Europe at the time of this writing. Consequently gold was a little firmer.

It is a bit calmer than chaos this morning following yesterday's big sell-off in global stock markets and sizeable rally in safe haven gold and yen.

Global stock markets sold off while safe haven gold and yen surged higher today. Market commentators blamed today’s risk-off trade on shenanigans at the White House.

Economic data out of the UK released in the last couple of days has been pound-positive, yet the GBP/USD is still holding below the 1.30 handle. But for how long? Given that the positively-correlating EUR/USD pair has already broken well above its own corresponding psychological hurdle at 1.10 after a sharp rally, the cable could be playing catch up.

There’s no lack of shareholder interest in Europe’s Number Two low-cost airline, which is now the eighth largest airline in the world.

As we had anticipated in our previous USD/CAD report on Monday of last week, the North American currency pair’s rebound was indeed temporary. The US dollar fell on the back of mixed-bag economic data while the surge in oil prices helped to underpin the Canadian dollar. Given that net short positions in the CAD had reached lofty levels, it is likely that speculators may now be reducing those bearish bets, which could weigh further on the USD/CAD as key support levels break. So there is the potential for a deeper pullback inside what still is a long-term bullish trend.

Vodafone’s 2016/17 earnings, as widely forecast, show the ravages of a year of putting out fires at home and abroad.

The euro continues to defy gravity. The single currency is up sharply against all of its major rivals, including the pound which took a beating despite stronger UK inflation figures released this morning.

The price of oil has surged higher at the start of the new trading week. This has helped to lift energy stocks and also underpin commodity currencies such as the Canadian dollar.

As we pointed out the possibility in our earlier report on gold, today’s US economic numbers have disappointed the somewhat optimistic expectations

The dollar buying witnessed at the start of the week was driven by rising expectations about a June rate hike following last week’s FOMC statement and a solid US monthly jobs report. But the greenback’s bullish run then paused in midweek amid the lack of any further stimulus. Today, market participants will finally have some top tier data at their disposal. The headline consumer price index measure of inflation will be the key figure to watch, although retail sales should also garner some attention, especially after earnings results from key US retailers disappointed expectations.

Commodity prices are firmer today with base and especially precious metals ending a bad run off losses, while crude oil has extended its gains from the day before when it rallied sharply on the back of the weekly US oil inventories report.

I can’t exactly say the markets were excited about the Bank of England’s “Super Thursday,” given the lack of any significant move in the pound ahead of the meeting. No one was expecting any changes to interest rates or QE, and so it proved

Whilst investors discount the likelihood of much market impact Bank of England’s ‘Super Thursday’, the bank has made one significant policy tweak in recent days.