Foreign Exchange - UK Daily Update - Written by jeremy on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 8:21 - 0 Comments
Fear Hammers Markets Lower - World First’s Morning Update - 3rd March 2009
Massive falls on global equity markets continued to keep risky assets under pressure during Monday’s trading session as technical and fundamental indicators showed a substantial worsening of future prospects.
In the UK the FTSE was down 5.3% hitting levels not seen in 6 years with financials the main culprits. Within that sector HSBC, whose rights issue was largely welcomed by the market, wrote down $10.6 billion of goodwill from their US operations. Mining shares also took a beating as lower commodity prices fed through. Across the pond, the picture was all too similar. The S&P 500 has not sat at these levels since 1996 and managed to hold onto the key 700 level with futures markets at the moment forecasting a 1% higher open.
Fundamentally speaking the data from the US was also terrible. The one thing that all analysts agree on is that we will not see a recovery in confidence until we see a recovery in house prices. Construction spending fell by more than double the expected amount yesterday as the amount spent on new projects fell by 3.3% in a month.
Normally you would expect a slight rebound on equity markets after heavy falls; the probability of today being higher going on historic occurrences is around 60%.
Data today may mirror yesterday however as our (UK) construction spending is due out at 09.30 with falls expected while pending home sales from the US are also set to disappoint.
Further analysis is of course always available at our video blog http://uk.youtube.com/user/WorldFirstJC
|
Indicative Rates |
||
|
|
Sell |
Buy |
|
GBPEUR |
1.1129 |
1.1157 |
|
GBPUSD |
1.4096 |
1.4124 |
|
EURUSD |
1.2650 |
1.2675 |
|
GBPJPY |
137.76 |
138.33 |
|
GBPAUD |
2.1901 |
2.1957 |
|
GBPNZD |
2.8208 |
2.8281 |
|
GBPCAD |
1.8050 |
1.8118 |
|
NZDUSD |
0.4981 |
0.5007 |
|
GBPZAR |
14.59 |
14.64 |
|
USDZAR |
10.33 |
10.38 |
|
GBPPLN |
5.2498 |
5.2772 |
|
EURJPY |
123.69 |
124.19 |
|
Rates are dependent on amount transacted |
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Please feel free to contact me (jeremy.cook@worldfirst.com) if you have any questions or thoughts regarding these updates or if you are interested in a particular event in the calendar. If you would like to discuss your foreign exchange requirements, please contact our: Corporate Foreign Exchange Team on 020 7801 9050 or our Private Client Currency Exchange Team on 020 7801 9080. Disclaimer: The above comments are only our views and should not be construed as advice. You should act using your own information and judgement. Although information has been obtained from and is based upon multiple sources the author believes to be reliable, we do not guarantee its accuracy and it may be incomplete or condensed. All opinions and estimates constitute the author’s own judgement as of the date of the briefing and are subject to change without notice. Any rates given are “interbank” i.e. for amounts of £5million and thus are not indicative of rates offered by World First for smaller amounts. E&OE. Definitions of jargon/market terms can be found in our Glossary of Foreign Exchange Terms.
To view any past or present currency blogs please click on the following link www.worldfirst.com/blog
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