020 7898 0500Trump is known for his scattergun approach and it is fair to say that nobody can properly predict what he might do from one day to the next. Indeed, US allies in Asia were fully unprepared for the announcement that the North Korea summit was cancelled, so one can only imagine what they made of Friday’s suggestion that it might go ahead after all.
Still, the dollar soared against sterling and the euro to cap a fine week. It’s actually been a good few weeks for the dollar which has been supported by expectations of further rate hikes in 2018 and a run of positive economic data. It is in stark contrast to the UK and when we consider how badly the dollar performed at the turn of the year, we begin to understand how unpredictable the currency markets are.
Durable goods orders were released on Friday and surprisingly shrank by more than expected. A drop of 1.4% had been forecast, but orders actually fell by 1.7%. Still, this is unlikely to rattle the markets in any meaningful way given the backdrop of other economic data.
Today we will see consumer confidence in the US for May before Wednesday’s all-important second estimate of GDP growth rate for the first quarter of 2018. It is expected to come in at 2.3% and it will be fascinating to see what the actual reading is and how it compares to the UK’s woeful reading last week.
