US earnings results once again dictated most the movement on Friday, with financials Citigroup and Bank of America releasing disappointing results. Citigroup managed to net a positive figure of $4.3bn, distorted by the $6.7bn sale of its former crown jewel Smith Barney, while Bank of America produced a below consensus profit of $3.2bn. GE, once described by Warren Buffet as “the symbol of American business to the world” also disappointed on its earnings release.

While American equities were flat as a result, the dollar was stronger as fears persist on the impact of CIT bankruptcy. European equities extended their nice little run of late, the CAC and DAX adding nearly 1% each, also pushing the euro marginally higher for the day.

Helping to push the pound down against most of its major rivals over the day was the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which noted that the lack of a “credible” plan for the UK public finances will continue to put pressure on the pound in the medium and long term. Forecasts also revealed that they believe the fiscal deficit will reach 13% in 2010/2011, an even more pessimistic outlook than the Treasuries latest projections. We continue to view this as one of the biggest threats to the pounds ongoing performance, which will struggle make further headway until the UK fiscal situation is improved.

Today we have leading indicators from the US due out in the afternoon, and overnight the Bank of Japan begins a monetary policy meeting.

World First’s Twitter page is up and running and we will be live ‘tweeting’ the impact of all these data releases and how they affect the markets. Click below for up-to-date news on all things currency. The address is http://twitter.com/World_First

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.