Our trusted foreign exchange specialist partner, Argentex, discusses the latest foreign exchange trends:
It’s been an exciting week or so for the Pound, seeing new highs of above 1.14 to the Euro and 1.3550 against the US Dollar. The new highs are predominantly due to the comments from the Bank of England who suggested that we may see interest rate rises sooner rather than later, perhaps even this year.
Considering that every piece of news that has come out of the UK in recent months has been negative, these comments gave a huge boost to the currency. Perhaps more than was really justified given that we have been given no concrete timeline expectation for rate rises.
During Theresa May’s speech in Florence the currency dipped for a short period as the markets digested the news that we’re going to have a two-year transition period before leaving the EU and are going to have to contribute huge amounts of money to fill the deficit in the meantime. Similar to the BoE’s Governor Carney, May managed to say an awful lot without really saying anything at all. Much of what she said was general sentiment and gave us no real indication of what to expect now for the UK.
At the time of writing, Sterling has returned to recent highs. This is not so much due to positive news for the UK, but negative news for the Euro. The papers are filled with Merkel, speaking of the difficult times ahead and how the presence of the right-wing party AFD will have an effect on Germany as well as the wider Euro-zone.
Only a few months ago, every paper was talking about the new wave of populism then it all quickly died down with Macron becoming the new President of France. The AFD gaining 12.6% of the vote in Germany on Sunday is a stark reminder to Merkel and the other liberal parties in Germany that populism is still a threat to their globalist view. With the current political uncertainty in the Euro-zone’s biggest economy, there is definitely a chance that we could see e Pound being pushed up towards even higher levels.
With increased volatility in the markets, it is important to time your foreign exchange payments effectively to make the most of any positive moves, as well as protecting against moves against you. Argentex are in partnership with Enness to provide their clients with preferable exchange rates as well as a fully bespoke and personal advisory service.
