2 June 2010
Yesterday, Cable had its best 24 hours in recent weeks as the Prudential-AIA deal collapsed inducing a 260 pip rally. This welcome boost for Sterling came through the unwinding of billions of dollars bought in anticipation of a merger with one of South East Asia’s largest insurers.
In addition to the Greenback sell off, the pound found support with positive PMI manufacturing data for May reaching 58, a 16 year high and good housing data from the Land Registry report which indicated home prices rose 8.5% yoy, the fastest rise since September 2007.
It was another poor day for the Euro yesterday, with worrying signs that the euro zone debt crisis may be spreading to the banking system. Spain’s second largest savings bank Caja Madrid is understood to have sought a bailout package worth €3 billion from a government rescue fund.
This is a double hammer for the bank who only last week had its rating placed on Credit Watch negative by Standard & Poor’s, which expects pressure on profits this year. This is further bad news for the Bank of Spain as they push for mergers amongst the smaller saving banks.
The news sent shock waves into the markets, the Euro fell to a 4 year low against the Dollar and currently sits at 1.2233 and 1.1993 against Sterling at the time of writing.
It was a mix bag of European data yesterday with EU statistics estimated that 10.1% of EU citizens were unemployed and increase of 0.1% month on month. However Germany indicated positive unemployment data falling from 7.8% to 7.7%. Furthermore boosts in export as a result of the weaker Euro drove the positive GDP growth in Germany, France and Spain for the first quarter of the year.
Finally, US manufacturing data from overnight was certainly positive amid signs that the US economy might indeed be able to reinvent itself as a manufacturing hub. The data out of China yesterday was certainly not particularly good but if the US economy is stable, then the world economy stands a chance of staying healthy in the long term.
Report by Philip Ryan
Currency Market Updates by Tom Nadir
The contents of this report are for information purposes only.


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