The Great Britain pound was mixed today after the consumer confidence improved unexpectedly and a member of the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee made dovish remarks.
The GfK UK Consumer Confidence rose slightly to -12 in September from -14 in the previous month. Market participants were not expecting any change. But the report was not as good as it might seem as Joe Staton, Client Strategy Director at GfK, said:
More mixed signals this month as consumers continue to feel less than positive about the state of their personal finances and the general economy. While all sub measures are higher, they are anaemic in the case of our purchase intentions and how we view our wallets — and the results on the wider economy are still depressed.
Michael Saunders, External Member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England, delivered a speech today. In it, he voiced concerns about the impact of Brexit uncertainty and slowing global growth on Britain’s economy:
With persistently high Brexit uncertainties and softer global growth, the UK economy has weakened markedly in recent quarters, opening up a modest amount of spare capacity.
He also stated that it may be necessary for the central bank to ease its monetary policy if Brexit uncertainties persist:
In such a scenario â not a no-deal Brexit, but persistently high uncertainty â it probably will be appropriate to maintain an expansionary monetary policy stance and perhaps to loosen further.
GBP/USD was at about 1.2312 as of 12:07 GMT today after opening at 1.2321 and falling to the daily low of 1.2270. GBP/CHF slipped from 1.2240 to 1.2231, falling to the low of 1.2188 intraday. GBP/JPY rose from 132.89 to 133.14, rebounding from the daily minimum of 132.31.
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