The Pre G20 meeting by finance ministers in the English countryside was a damp squib by all accounts; a commitment to greater cooperation in the future is all that we got. Any lack of details from the main meeting on April 2nd would drastically hurt sentiment. Some spectators believe that the current funk assets are in is due to Treasury secretary Geithner’s refusal to give details of the US bank bailout plan; he gets a second chance today. Subsequently we are hopeful of a good day for sterling.

Equity markets were broadly higher on Friday with the FTSE turning in its best week of the year so far as it rose on 4 days out of the 5. Miners were higher on bullish comments on growth from the Chinese government while HSBC also ticked up as renewed stimulus interest from Japan and China allowed the market to put fears over the bank’s imminent rights issue to the side for now.

There’s a few bits of chunky data today including HICP from Europe, Industrial Production from the US and the Bank of England’s Quarterly Inflation Report.

Further analysis is of course always available at our video blog http://uk.youtube.com/user/WorldFirstJC

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.

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