The Great Britain pound was rising initially today but reversed gains after UK Prime Minister Theresa May failed yet again to convince the Parliament to vote for her Brexit plans. There were plenty of economic reports released in the United Kingdom today but they had limited impact on the market as the investors’ attention was focused on the Brexit vote.
May presented a stripped-down version of the EU-UK Brexit Withdrawal Agreement to the Parliament but MPs voted down the proposal yet again. While the Brexit deadline was postpone till April 12, it means that just two weeks remain for British lawmakers to find a way to avoid a no-deal Brexit, which remains the legal default. Immediately after the voting, European Council President Donald Tusk called for an emergency EU summit on April 10 to discuss Britain’s departure from the European Union.
As for economic releases, the most important of them were arguably the current account and gross domestic product. The current account deficit widened to £23.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018 from £23.0 billion in the third quarter. GDP rose 0.2% in the fourth quarter according to the final estimate, unchanged from the preliminary estimate and in line with market expectations.
GBP/USD dropped from 1.3045 to 1.3009 as of 19:11 GMT today after rising to the daily high of 1.3135 earlier. EUR/GBP was up from 0.8604 to 0.8622, rebounding from the daily low of 0.8550. GBP/JPY traded at 144.12 after opening at 144.32 and rising to the daily high of 145.47.
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