020 7898 0500Sterling recovered some of the ground it lost against the dollar on Friday, following comments made by Dominic Raab. Investors were buoyed by his confidence that a Brexit deal could still be reached, despite evidence to the contrary. The government remains divided on the best route forward – and the markets will certainly need to see reasons to believe we can avoid a hard Brexit. Speaking of Brexit, the government published its latest set of no-deal Brexit planning papers yesterday. You can read them here.
Meanwhile, CBI industrial trends orders for September declined to a four-month low of -1 from +7 in the previous month. The markets had been expecting a figure of +5, so the release was rather disappointing. Export orders fell to the lowest level since October 2017, but output expectations for the next three months remain strong.
Nothing is on the economic data schedule today, but there will no doubt be further news on what next for the Brexit negotiations. Tomorrow is busier, with UK finance mortgage approvals for August, as well as the CBI distributive trades for September.
