There has been activity on markets in the early session of Tuesday. It all commenced at 7am when UK released unemployment rate. Month-on-month we saw an uplift of 0.1% to a total of 4.8%. This is above the target region of 4%. Year-on-year we can also see that more people are becoming unemployed, as reference same time last year the unemployment rate sat at 4%. In 2025 we have seen the UK economy facing draw backs on output, higher national insurance and a higher minimum wage leading to business facing more challenges keeping its employers within a job. GBP took losses against both the EUR and USD in the morning session and is so far (9.30am) down by 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively. Average earnings were also released this morning, and we can see a slowdown in growth of employer’s paycheck from 4.8% to 4.7%. This gives us an indication that business priorities keeping costs down now cause of concerns for growth.
The overall momentum for USD is continuing against GBP. This morning, we saw weak UK data, but since the shutdown of the US government we have seen the greenback taking large gains. Now with trade threats between the US and China, we can see additional uncertainty for the world economy – leading to investors preferring holding a safe haven currency like the USD.
GBP/EUR 1.1475 GBP/USD 1.3264 GBP/AED 4.8763
GBP/AUD 2.0546 GBP/CHF 1.0655 GBP/CAD 1.8653
GBP/NZD 2.3318 EUR/USD 1.1544 GBP/ZAR 23.1605