The end of this week has transitioned into an obvious risk-off sentiment for markets. Traders and investors are seeking out more safer investments. A combination of factors has led to this market movement. Firstly the trade tension between the US and China is ongoing, we have seen USD taking losses since the beginning on the week to both GBP and EUR. Suggesting that investors are favouring China to come out of top. Gold is a good indicator of this, which is backing China rather than the US. Gold have had its best performing week since back in 2008. Additionally, US regional banks have seen large sell-offs, after fraud speculations on commercial backed mortgages. A sell-off in the banking sector echoed across stock markets and we have seen red across several stock markets in this morning session. EUR seems to be the preferred holding versus GBP and USD currently and noticing an uplift of 2% to USD during this week.
This afternoon we have US housing starts and building permits being released. After its announcement of fraud within regional banks in the us in the mortgage sectors, if these data released would come out poorly it could fuel further risk-off sentiment for markets and lead to additional volatility across currency pairs. Expectations is that both building permits and housing starts should see a small uplift. We will have to wait and see close to its release if markets start moving in a certain direction, to give us an indication of the health on the US housing market.
GBP/EUR 1.1465 GBP/USD 1.3422 GBP/AED 4.9323
GBP/AUD 2.0766 GBP/CHF 1.0598 GBP/CAD 1.8850
GBP/NZD 2.3453 EUR/USD 1.1690 GBP/ZAR 23.4240