Daily Foreign Exchange Market Update

Mon, January 30, 2012

The Pound closed out last week having made substantial gains against the US Dollar, but fell versus the Euro in the foreign exchange market. The GBP/EUR exchange rate moved down from Monday’s open at 1.2013, to close the week out up at 1.1939. The pair traded in a range of 1.2031 weeks high to 1.1904 being the low across the week. The GBP/USD exchange rate however, gained across the course of the week, from Monday’s open at 1.5527, to finish the week at 1.5715.

The week ahead will see a fair amount of data released from the UK. The first significant data will be released on Tuesday, with the UK’s GfK Consumer Confidence Survey figure at 00:01GMT then further in the morning will look out for Mortgage Approvals for the month of December. Later in the week we will see the change in Nationwide House Prices across the year from the month of January and also GBP Purchasing Manager Index for manufacturing in January due at 09:30 GMT on Wednesday. Thursday will see the release of the Purchasing Manager Index for Construction which is expected to decrease from 53.2 to 52.5 for the month of January.

The Euro gained across the board throughout last week in the currency exchange market. The EUR/USD rate picked up from 1.2925 at Monday’s open, to trade up at 1.3192 by the close of the European trading session on Friday.

The main market focus for the week ahead in Europe will be Tuesday’s German unemployment change for the month of January expected at -5k from -22k in the previous month. Thursday will be holding another key data release, with the Euro-Zone Producer Price Index across the year from is expected to decrease from 5.3% to 4.3%. Finally to the end the week we will look out for the Euro-Zone Retail sales expected to increase from -2.3% to -1.3% across the year.

The US Dollar continued to slide and lose ground against the Euro and the Pound last week. This week’s key events to look out for will start with today’s US Personal Consumption Expenditure at 13:30GMT, expected to be unchanged by economist at 1.7% across the year. Further in the week we will see the US ISM manufacturing figures for the month of January to be released Wednesday at 15:00GMT. Friday will see US Change in Non-farm Payrolls expected to decrease from 200k to 150K and the Unemployment rate expected to be unchanged at 8.5% for the month of January.

This Daily Market Update is brought to you by The Market Team @ KBRFX – Exchange Rate, Currency Conversion & Foreign Currency Transfer specialists.

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