Weekly € rates and comments - week commencing 24th December 2007

 

 

Sterling has had a bad week. First the minutes of the last Bank of England interest rate meeting were released and showed that the vote to reduce interest rates was unanimous. This surprised the market. Then the balance of payment figures were released. These were very bad with a huge net outflow of funds from the UK. And now the Christmas retail period is not going as well as hoped and house prices continue to fall in most places. All doom and gloom so it is not a surprise that sterling is suffering. Sterling only seemed to make a gain against the South African rand. Shows how the market views the new head of the ANC in South Africa! But I suppose they did win the rugby world cup.

 

The € is still the preferred currency and sits at €1.382/£1 inter bank. Inflation continues to be of concern to the European Central Bank. So any cuts in € interest rates are very unlikely short to medium term. But clearly the credit crunch is having an affect on Euro land as the ECB lent €350 billion to financial institutions last week who were having difficulty borrowing elsewhere. And I still feel that Euro land cannot be immune to the slow down elsewhere. Talking to one of my clients who does a lot of business in Euro land he said there was a lot of pain being suffered by Euro land exporters given the strong € exchange rate.

 

ALL THE VERY BEST FOR 2008.