The British pound to euro rate (GBP/EUR) manages to add further gains as Sterling strengthens off the back of EU negotiations today.
"To start to alleviate pressure on sterling, we would need to see a decline back through 0.7700 EUR/GBP opening a test of more important support at 0.7610 followed by 0.7450. A drop back through these respective levels would suggest a significant lower high is in place and that we are moving back into the broader range type process over 0.70/0.69 support that developed for most of last year " Lloyds
The GBP to EUR Conversion Rate Remains Strong as EU Leaders Express Desire for Agreement
While there are many detractors, sentiment among the majority of EU leaders seems to be one of co-operation, strengthening the pound to euro exchange rate on the potential for a successful summit.
The Polish Prime Minister, Beata Szydlo, has become the latest leader to say that the ideal outcome is for an agreement to be reached, although the price must be acceptable.
David Cameron may be claiming that the EU negotiations are making good progress, but the results of a new poll could weaken the pound to euro rate as they show how EU and US policymakers rate his performance.
Only just over 1% of those polled rated his performance as ‘excellent’ and only 16% said it was ‘good’; the majority (41%) thought it was ‘average’ while an equal proportion of respondents (21% each) said the Prime Minister’s negotiations had been ‘poor’ or ‘fair’.
Thursday's foreign exchange rate markets find the pound a little stronger versus the euro, and against the US dollar.
Where do GBP/EUR and GBP/USD forecasts see the crosses in the near-term?
Citibank says "Data reflects UK economic growth slowdown may prompt the BoE to revised down Q4 economic growth in February. We expect the probability of 2016 economic growth lower than 2% may increase due to falling export, which may restrain GBP."
Here are the latest fx rates for your reference:
On Thursday the Euro to British Pound exchange rate (EUR/GBP) converts at 0.857
The GBP to EUR exchange rate converts at 1.167 today.
At time of writing the pound to us dollar exchange rate is quoted at 1.251.
At time of writing the pound to canadian dollar exchange rate is quoted at 1.712.
NB: the forex rates mentioned above, revised as of 25th Apr 2024, are inter-bank prices that will require a margin from your bank. Foreign exchange brokers can save up to 5% on international payments in comparison to the banks.
Yesterday morning has been fairly uneventful for the Pound Sterling (GBP), with the highly anticipated domestic data not providing the expected support to the UK currency.
The Pound’s downtrend has mainly been caused by the nation’s ILO unemployment rate for the three months to the end of December remaining at 5.1%, instead of falling to 5% as had been forecast.
Elsewhere, however, UK data was actually fairly supportive; jobless claims fell by -14.8k in January while weekly earnings excluding bonuses rose by 2% instead of dropping to 1.8% as expected.
Pound Sterling Forecast: Next UK Releases due Friday, Covering UK Borrowing Stats
The remainder of the week will see no UK economic announcements made tomorrow, with the last hope for a Sterling rally coming on Friday with the nation’s retail sales and governmental borrowing figures for January being revealed.
At the time of writing, expectations were for a rise for both retail figures, with movement from -0.9% to 0.7% being forecast on the month and a shift from 2.1% to 3.4% being predicted on the year.
The UK’s borrowing stats were also forecast positively at the time of writing, with reductions of more than -12.2bn being forecast for both the base figure and that excluding the input of banking groups.
Euro to Pound Sterling Exchange Rate Makes Middling Movement Today on Earlier Soft Statistics
With the morning bringing relatively few Eurozone contributions, the common currency has been devalued today by the currency bloc’s construction results as well as an additional contribution from Greece.
In the former case, output in December slowed on the year from 0.3% to -0.4%, while in the latter, Greece’s inflation rate for January fell into negative ranges on both counts.
Tomorrow morning will bring the announcement of both the European Central Bank’s (ECB) account of the monetary policy meeting, as well as the Eurozone’s overall currency account for December.
US Dollar (USD/GBP) is Unappealing Prospect Today due to Sliding Mortgage Stats
The US Dollar has made evident losses today and has trended in a tight range elsewhere against most of its rivals. Little of the day’s data has arrived yet, so investors have been forced to rely on the first disappointing release for their judgements.
This has been the MBA mortgage expectations figure, which has shown a clear slowdown from a previous 9.3% figure to 8.2% for the latest iteration.
The near future is set to bring a number of US announcements, in the form of the January housing starts and building permits, as well as the release of the Fed’s minutes from their January meeting.
Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Forecast: ING Bank Official Remains on the Fence about UK Unemployment Printing
While investors appear to have been unimpressed by the earlier UK Unemployment Rate results, James Smith of ING Bank has characterised the result as follows:
’the unemployment rate…continues to signal that the labour market remains tight…[and] wage pressures continue to remain subdued. However, in our opinion, the underlying strength of the labour market means that it is only a matter of time before wages start to pick up more meaningfully again’.