All this and more is available on our video blog at http://uk.youtube.com/user/WorldFirstJC

Markets have become increasingly skittish in the past few trading sessions; equities lower and then unable to bounce suggests a further fall, dragging risk aversion into the market.

The Bank of England’s Chief Economist, Spencer Dale, weakened sterling yesterday by commenting that the relative weakness of sterling was making UK assets more attractive to foreign investors and the exchange rate was a “key channel” to helping economic growth. This has been seen as an indirect attempt to shift sterling lower after its recent spate of strength.

In the strange market that we are sat in at the moment which could probably be classified as a ‘dying bear recovery’ data means a little less than it should. European Services PMI was worse than expected and after the jitters that a better than expected IFO caused you’d think euro would be carted kicking and screaming. Wrong. Euro moved to a 2 week high against USD and a 3 week high against the GBP.

This dismissal of data could be the start of a technical down leg for asset classes in the coming months. More on this will be available in a special report that will be with you this afternoon.

The data focus will be almost exclusively on the FOMC decision at 19.15 this evening. however we expect a consensus message (no interest rate movement and no further asset purchase plans) and therefore no real major moves as a result.  

World First’s Twitter page is up and running and we will be live ‘tweeting’ the impact of all these data releases and how they affect the markets. Click below for up-to-date news on all things currency. The address is http://twitter.com/World_First