UK GDP was revised upwards on Friday to -0.7% against the previous of -0.8%. Analysts were worried that given the poor business investment figure released on Thursday we may see a decline. As it stands GDP was helped by government spending and an increase in exports due to the weak pound. Sterling moved higher for a couple of hours but was taken lower in evening trade and spent most of the weekend in the 1.61/62s.

Risky assets were not helped by the increasingly volatile Shanghai Composite Index which fell by over 5% in Monday trade. The falls were due to fears that Chinese authorities are to impose bank lending limits whilst also curbing imports. This took Asian, European and American markets lower in fairly weak trade. Currency markets have recovered somewhat overnight as you can see from the rates table below in what most people are blaming on end of the month price fixings. This may have also have been backed by a strong Chicago PMI (50.0 vs. 43.4 expected).

It is a busy week of data with the ECB, RBA and the Swedish Riksbank all releasing rate decisions amongst the usual barrage of PMIs, retail sales and GDP data. Overnight the RBA have held their rates at 3%; AUD has dipped a bit after people betting on an increase were priced out of the market but is still very strong in the grand scheme of things. Australian GDP should be strong overnight as well.

Closer to home we have manufacturing PMI from both the UK and Europe and manufacturing ISM from the US alongside UK mortgage approvals and US pending home sales.   

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