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And so it starts; 2009 is over and we can now focus on another 12 months. Let’s get you back up to speed with a quick recap of what’s happened in the past 10 days or so.

The main news story continued to be fears over the ‘Sovereign Debt Risk’ of certain European Union states. This will not be the last you hear this phrase in 2010 we can guarantee you. Obviously it is Greece that everyone is most worried about but similar problems exist or are forecast in Italy, Ireland and Austria. The euro is in for a tough year and ended ’09 on the back foot against the dollar and most other currencies.

The pound was however unable to take advantage. It was horrifically volatile over the Christmas period fulfilling our belief that it would fall through the 1.60 level against the USD and close to 1.10 (0.9090 in EUR/GBP terms) against the euro. We do foresee a little fight back from the pound in the first week of Jan however as the liquidity and haven issues that saw the dollar strengthen in Dec unwind.

And we start 2010 in dataful mode with surveys from the European manufacturing sector (09.00 GMT), the UK manufacturing sector (09.30) and the same sector in the US (15.00).

We hope you had a good new years and holiday period and look forward to speaking to you soon,

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