Foreign Exchange - UK Daily Update - Written by jeremy on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 7:23 - 0 Comments
Geithner’s Assurances Help Sterling Higher - World First’s Currency Exchange Morning Update - 22nd April 2009
All this and more is available on our video blog at http://uk.youtube.com/user/WorldFirstJC
Testimony by Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, gave financial shares some thing to smile about and allowed sterling to ease back close to the recent highs against the euro.
Geithner stated that the ‘vast majority’ of banks had more capital than was needed at this point allaying fears of another leg to the banking crisis. His testimony came late afternoon and allowed the FTSE to move away from the day’s lows to close with a negligible loss.
UK interests were not helped by the news that RPI, the retail prices index, fell into negative territory for the first time in 50 years with a posting of -0.4%. While this provides an uneasy backdrop for today’s budget, the main reason for the fall is the Bank of England’s interest rate policy. Slashing cuts to the lowest level in history has reduced the mortgage burden on the average household and hence the fall in RPI. CPI is unaffected by mortgage interest payments and fell to the expected level of 2.9%.
Today is of course Budget day for the UK. Alasdair Darling will lay out the details of Her Majesty’s government’s spending for the next 12 months in what has been termed ‘the budget from hell’. We will be live-blogging via our Twitter page (http://twitter.com/World_First) on the ins and outs of the budget and a full run down will be in tomorrow’s morning update. Naturally it is a significant risk to sterling and trade after 12.30 may prove to be choppy.
It is also Election Day in South Africa today with Jacob Zuma and the ANC expected to take the reins of the country.
World First’s Twitter page is up and running. Check it out for all the usual morning and weekly updates plus ‘tweets’ on breaking FX news, interesting asides and comment from our business friends. The address is http://twitter.com/World_First
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Indicative Rates |
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|
|
Sell |
Buy |
|
GBPEUR |
1.1300 |
1.1329 |
|
GBPUSD |
1.4582 |
1.4611 |
|
EURUSD |
1.2889 |
1.2913 |
|
GBPJPY |
143.00 |
143.42 |
|
GBPAUD |
2.0755 |
2.0810 |
|
GBPNZD |
2.6287 |
2.6367 |
|
GBPCAD |
1.8079 |
1.8148 |
|
NZDUSD |
0.5539 |
0.5565 |
|
GBPZAR |
13.14 |
13.21 |
|
USDZAR |
9.00 |
9.06 |
|
GBPPLN |
4.9745 |
5.0295 |
|
EURJPY |
126.23 |
126.76 |
|
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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