ECB lowered their borrowing costs by 25 basis points to a base rate of 3.75% yesterday – which didn’t come as a surprise and markets were unchanged at the announcement. Christine Lagarde said in the press conference afterwards that ECB are well on track on the process of disinflation, seeing levels reach 1.8% in September. Even if inflation levels came in below its target rate of 2%, ECB expect that inflation will increase once again in the upcoming months with both oil and energy prices to increase.
This morning, we saw UK retail sales grow stronger than forecasted than expectations in September. Increasing by 0.3% for September reaching a 2-year high. GBP took advantage of this and broke through the 1.20 mark and touched 1.2050 to the EUR in this Friday morning session. This is the highest point GBP/EUR has been at since back in April 2022. Big factors for the boost for retail was releases for technology appliances, and particularly the new iPhone. Markets are currently sitting at very healthy area of 1.2030.
GBP/EUR 1.2020 GBP/USD 1.3027 GBP/AED 4.7864
GBP/AUD 1.9412 GBP/CHF 1.1284 GBP/CAD 1.7973
GBP/NZD 2.1374 EUR/USD 1.0827 GBP/ZAR 22.814