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Sterling enjoyed the long bank holiday weekend more than most as it touched 1.50 against the USD and moved back into the 1.12s against the EUR.

This was down an increase in risk appetite in markets alongside some more ‘green shoots’. Chinese manufacturing PMI rose above 50 for the first time in 9 months in April; a reading above 50 signals that an in industry’s output is increasing. This follows bullish moves from UK and EU PMIs and American ISMs in the past week.

The euro weakened a little yesterday against GBP and was sold heavily against the USD and JPY as Axel Weber, a member of the ECB governing council predicted that the German economy would not see growth until H2 2010. This compounded uneasiness circling the euro as the EU released their expected growth figure of -4% for the European Union as a whole. If there is an IMF downgrade to this euro will continue to decline into their rate meeting on Thursday.

The biggest potential green shoot for the UK is the construction industry and their PMI is released at 09.30 this morning with a rise predicted albeit remaining still in contractionary territory. The ISM from the US non-manufacturing sector is also out today.

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Indicative Rates

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