With the currency markets moving every two seconds, it can be vitally important to be aware of what is driving the currencies in or out of your favour. The below table shows the difference in US Dollars you would have achieved when buying £200,000.00 during the high and low levels of the past 30 days.
| Currency Pair | % Change | Difference on £200,000 |
|---|---|---|
| GBP/USD | 2.1% | $5,600 |
Will GBP/USD BREAK 1.30 anytime soon?
In my personal opinion, I feel the 1.30 mark could happen over the coming weeks, with the USD currently in free fall against many of its other major currency pairings I can certainly see this trend set to continue for the coming weeks and months ahead. With president Trump still struggling to pass many of his election reforms, Mr Trump has still not been able to get the support he needs to pass the frequently spoken about healthcare reform, this is still causing further USD weakness and highlighting the lack of confidence currently thought of by the latest president. Since Mr Trump has come into the White House we have seen the dollar drop a shocking 9% against sterling and I think this is set to continue over the coming weeks ahead.
Long term sentiment
Long term the dollar does not seem to have much light at the end of the tunnel, with ongoing tensions with North Korea and the recent Hurricane Harvey disaster thought to cost in the region of $125BN dollars of damage, these are the latest situations that seem to be adding further pressure on an already weakened dollar. Hurricane Harvey has left a quarter of America’s oil refining capacity offline, while crude oil production in the gulf of Mexico has also fallen. This is turn is expected to increases prices on our own pumps over here and we could see as much as 5p per litre being added to our fuel costs over the coming weeks as we start to see a knock on affect.
Non-farm payroll data
The nonfarm payrolls release came out on Friday at 156,000 new jobs created during the previous month, in all non-agricultural business. The monthly changes in payrolls can be extremely volatile, due to its high relation with economic policy decisions made by the Central Bank. The number is also subject to strong reviews in the upcoming months, and those reviews also tend to trigger volatility in currency markets. Generally speaking, a high reading is seen as positive for the USD, while a low reading is seen as negative, last week these figures came in significantly lower than expected and we did see a slight decrease in the dollars value off of the back of this news only for the rate to creep back up to where it was prior to this release by the close of play.
Thank you for reading today’s market report, I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have and would take pleasure in replying personally. I am more than happy to assist you with any of your currency requirements. Feel free to e-mail me at bjr@currencies.co.uk.
