UK: Weekly FX Market Update 17 April
GBP
GBPUSD made a new high for 2023 despite UK GDP flatlining in March.
The main driver for this move higher was dollar weakness, caused by falling US inflation.
UK Employment data is released on Tuesday and UK CPI is released on Wednesday. Retail Sales are due out on Friday.
Can the UK economy continue to perform better than the IMF’s forecast of a 0.3% contraction for 2023?
EUR
EURUSD also made a new high for 2023 last week.
Eurozone Current Account and Final CPI is released on Wednesday.
ECB Board Member Holzmann said that the Eurozone inflation outlook alone warrants a 0.5% rate hike on May 4th.
Will this hawkishness continue to support the Euro?
USD
Headline US CPI dropped a full percentage point in March from 6% to 5%, disappointing the market and causing the USD sell off.
Producer prices index also had its largest drop since the pandemic, falling by 0.5%.
This week, US regional banks release their earnings reports, the first release since the collapse of SVB.
With the collapse of SVB just a month ago, the release of the bank earnings reports carries greater significance than previous. Will the reports allude to weakness in this important sector of the US economy? If it does, will we see another bout of US Dollar weakness?
With the fall in US inflation, have we seen the peak of the FOMC’s hiking cycle? If so, is the USD set for a period of weakness against its major peers? Or could this be short-lived, with the BoE and ECB soon to follow suit as global inflation drops and interest rate cuts become the talking point for the second half of 2023?
Events for the week ahead:
Mon Apr 17
13:30 USD Empire State Manufacturing Index
15:00 GBP MPC Cunliffe Speaks
Tue Apr 18
03:00 CNY GDP
07:00 GBP Claimant Count Change/Average Earnings Index/Unemployment Rate
10:00 EUR ZEW Economic Sentiment/Trade Balance
13:30 CAD CPI
Wed Apr 19
07:00 GBP CPI
09:00 EUR Current Account
10:00 EUR Final CPI
17:30 MPC Mann Speaks
Thu Apr 20
13:45 USD FOMC Waller Speaks
15:00 EUR Consumer Confidence
Fri Apr 21
07:00 GBP Retail Sales
09:00 EUR Flash Manufacturing & Services PMI
09:30 GBP Flash Manufacturing & Services PMI
14:45 USD Flash Manufacturing & Services PMI