Currency Exchange Service 18/02/10
Posted: Wednesday, February 17, 2010
by Phil Bennetts
Sat WorldWide
The Pound According to the Office for National Statistics jobless claims unexpectedly jumped in January to the highest level since Tony Blair led the Labour Party to power almost 13 years ago. The BOE said last week that employment is at risk of falling "significantly further" if the economy's recovery from the longest recession on record falters. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is counting on a pickup to gather momentum and help him to gain much needed voter support in time for an election. Mean While BOE policy makers unanimously agreed to put on hold the 200 billion-pound bond-purchase plan this month as optimism that inflation will return to their 2 % target. "The February projections did not imply an overwhelming risk of inflation being below the target over the forecast period, and so did not suggest an immediate need for a further relaxation of the policy stance," the bank said in minutes of the Feb. 4 meeting published yesterday. We can see that the pound is doing well against the Euro, but this is due more to Euro weakness than pound strength.
The Euro Europe may need to come up with as much as 320 billion euro's if it decides to bail out Greece because it would open the door to rescuing other countries in financial distress, according to BNP Paribas. "To come up with a bailout plan that would be reasonably certain of success, it would have to cover all the most likely candidates, and it would have to be big," said Paul Mortimer- Lee, global head of market economics at BNP in London. "Size matters when you are trying to scare off speculators and to comfort nervy bondholders." European leaders last week pledged to guarantee the stability of the euro region, though they stopped short of naming specific measures to help Greece. Spanish and Portuguese bonds have declined on concern those countries will also struggle to cut their deficits.
Major Data out Today
JP Leading indicator (F)
CH Trade Balance
UK CBI Industrial Trends
CA CPI
CA CPI - BoC core rate
US Initial Claims
US PPI
US PPI ex food and energy
Live IB rates at 5.16am UK
GBP-EURO 1.1535
GBP-USD 1.565
GBP-AUD 1.748
EURO-USD 1.356
Currency Exchange Service
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