Forex Weekly Round Up 16/5/16 – 20/5/16

There was more discussion surrounding Brexit on Monday with the release of the results by a poll conducted last week. The “remain” camp held an eight-point lead over its “leave” rivals in Britain’s EU referendum campaign, according to the latest telephone poll from ICM for the Guardian newspaper.

On Tuesday morning the UK’s consumer pricing index showed inflation fell in April for the first time since September, largely because of cheaper air fares after the Easter holidays. The Office for National Statistics said the rate dropped to 0.3% and the main causes were falls in the prices of air fares, vehicles, clothing and social housing rent.

The Federal Reserve is likely to give US interest rates another hike next month, according to the minutes of its latest policy meeting published this evening. Unless the economy is blown off course, The US Fed is gearing up to raise interest rates for only the second time since the financial crisis when they next meet on 14 June.

On Thursday, the pound continued its positive move higher following better than expected retail sales figures, despite Brexit fears, consumer spending is still growing. The figure itself was printed at 1.3% against a previous of -0.5% causing GBP to rally against most other counterparts.

Here are the exchange rates taken at 12:53 today. Please note that all conversions are based on interbank rates without any spreads and should be used only as a guide. For live ‘spot’ and ‘forward’ prices please feel free to drop us a line.

GBP/USD 1.4565
GBP/EUR 1.2983
USD/EUR 0.8914