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Strong UK wage & Unemployment data this morning

• Posted by Shyam Gokani in Bank of England, Brexit, Currency, Dollar, Economy, EUR, GBP, Inflation, Referendum, Retail Sales, Sterling, UK
• July 20, 2016
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According to the latest release from the Office for National Statistics, the UK jobless rate improved from 5.0% to 4.9%, while the jobless claims change ticked lower from 12,200 to 400.

In addition, average weekly earnings excluding bonuses decelerated slightly to 2.2% from the 2.3% booked previously, while the gauge including bonuses jumped to 2.3% from 2.0% booked in the previous month.

Sterling ticked around 30 pips higher to $1.3130 and was trading at fresh daily highs.

In the previous session, UK CPI for June improved and topped analysts’ estimates. The yearly change jumped to 1.4% from 1.2%, while analysts had expected a rise to 1.3%. The monthly print came in at 0.2% as expected and the year-on-year change of core CPI printed 0.5%, up from 0.3% previously.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published the latest edition of its World Economic Outlook yesterday afternoon and it made extremely grim reading for investors holding the Pound Sterling.

The widely-read report placed much emphasis on last month’s UK Referendum result which saw voters reject the European Union and come out in favour of an unexpected Brexit.

The IMF was relatively sanguine about the very near-term effects on the UK economy, predicting a slight dip in domestic economic activity this year. However, the austere organisation forecast a real hit for the UK economy during 2017.

Furthermore, Thursday will see retail sales for June from the United Kingdom and a big slowdown month-on-month is expected here, which might also undermine sterling.

 

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