Friday started off with downward pressure for GBP after Rachel Reeve said that for the autumn budget the government might avoid increasing income tax. With a potential policy shift so close before the budget announcement has led to uncertainty and speculations on markets. The initial stance on higher income tax was portrait to tighten the fiscal situation in the UK while avoiding to fuel inflation levels higher. This move can lead to a support for UK government gilts to rally and would form an economic outlook ahead of December and Bank of England to more likely lower interest rates. Markets broke below 1.13 for GBP/EUR in the early hours. We have seen a quick recovery on markets since then moving back up above the 1.13 levels.
For today there is mainly US data in the afternoon session with PPI (producer price index) and retail sales being released. Now moving forward with the US government operating again we will see a lot more of US data releases that were set on hold. PPI is expected to see an uplift month-on-month from -0.1% to 0.3% which can be a starting point of increasing inflation levels as producers tend to push additional costs onto the consumer.
Retail sales month-on-month have been stagnant in the US for the last 3 months and expectations now is that we will see a drop from 0.6% to 0.4%. Retail sales tends to perform well this time of the year and if we can see a downfall, it would suggest that households are under immense pressure on disposable spending ahead of the holiday season.
GBP/EUR 1.1304 GBP/USD 1.3149 GBP/AED 4.8320
GBP/AUD 2.0162 GBP/CHF 1.0411 GBP/CAD 1.8456
GBP/NZD 2.3166 EUR/USD 1.1618 GBP/ZAR 22.4955