Someone said to me on New Year’s Eve that ‘an optimist stays up until midnight to see in the new year whereas a pessimist stays up to make sure the last one has ended’. 2008 seemed like a year that would never end; a year of misery for most if not all of the globe. Euro has however given us a ray of light as it traded weaker on Wednesday and in this morning’s early markets.

European manufacturing PMI is due today at 9am GMT and with weakness projected that could force the ECB to cut rates from 2.50% euro has slackened against most currencies including sterling. Most economists surveyed in a Bloomberg poll see the ECB rate below 2% in the coming quarter. Those same are predicting that the Bank of England will once again slash rates to a low of 1%.

A BBC poll published yesterday made for an interesting reading as it showed that around 70% of the people polled would vote ‘no’ in a referendum on the UK adopting the euro. The recent falls have made the option more enticing by a whopping 8% of respondents. This is of course comes a month after Juan Barroso said that the ‘people that mattered’ were in the process of putting the wheels in place. 1-0 I believe.

This will not come as a galloping shock to any of you but the UK retail sector had a pretty poor December. The sales seen over the past week did increase footfall by 12% but as a total month the figure was down by 3% from this time last year. This morning 3 of the UK’s largest High St. presences have pledged to slash prices; Asda on beauty products, Tesco on petrol and JD Wetherspoons are taking the price of a pint of Green King IPA down to 99p.

US initial jobless claims fell by the most in 16 years on Wednesday although this could be down to the fact that not even US corporations, notoriously cut throat in their HR policies, fire many people over the festive season. As budgets are decided and set in January we expect unemployment to rise in the US and on a global scale.

Further data released today from the UK includes Mortgage Applications which are forecast to stabilise although we may see a US style recovery. 

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