020 7898 0500The pound’s woes against the dollar continued yesterday and it has lost almost four cents in a week. There were no economic data releases from the UK yesterday, but events in the US helped strengthen the dollar against a basket of currencies.
Meanwhile, the latest forecasts from the EY Item Club showed that the UK economy grew at a slower rate in the first quarter of 2018 than the fourth quarter of 2017. We will see the official reading this Friday, but the forecasts suggest we could see growth of just 0.2%-0.3%. It is believed that the period of bad weather the UK faced at the end of February and beginning of March is partly responsible, but it is still concerning. Interestingly, the report says that the EY Item Club expect two rate hikes this year and the first will take place in May.
Still, the pound managed to make some very slight gains against the euro, as there was some underwhelming PMI data from the eurozone. Today we will have the public sector net borrowing figure for March, as well as the CBI industrial trends orders for April. The last reading was the lowest since October 2017, so it will be hoped it comes in as expected and rises from 4 to 7.
