GBP: Brexiteer Nigel Farage close to backing a second EU referendum

Sterling weakened against the euro yesterday following the release of some positive German GDP data and bullish sentiment from the ECB’s mid-December meeting minutes. It did, however, strengthen against the dollar following three consecutive days of weakening. This move could have come about as a result of some worse-than-expected jobless claim data from the US.

Meanwhile, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he was coming closer to supporting calls for a second EU referendum. While his comments made on Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff were surprising, perhaps his confidence that a fresh vote could ‘kill off’ the Remain campaign was more surprising. If the past couple of years have taught us anything it is that having confidence in any election result is absurd – Farage himself conceded defeat in the EU referendum before later learning the Leave campaign had won.

Today we will see the retail sales for December. It is obviously impossible precisely what the figures will be, but both Tesco and Marks & Spencer suffered significant falls on the FTSE 100 yesterday. While Tesco’s sales were impressive they were below expectations, but M&S’s suffered falls in both clothing and food sales. Makes for a fascinating day.