Daily Market News 23 Mar 2011

Yesterday’s market movers

  • In the UK yesterday we had key data out in the form of CPI and RPI, both came out higher than expected. These figures pushed sterling to a 15th month high against USD trading at 1.6406. We saw this strengthen against the USD as speculation increased that we would raise interest rates.

    Yesterday’s market movers

    • In the UK yesterday we had key data out in the form of CPI and RPI, both came out higher than expected. These figures pushed sterling to a 15th month high against USD trading at 1.6406. We saw this strengthen against the USD as speculation increased that we would raise interest rates.
    • However these figures were slightly overshadowed by the UKs Public sector net Borrowing which came out at £10.280bn nearly double the consensus for the month of February and which may be reflected into today’s budget by George Osborne and still not fully elevate the concerns for the UK.
    • There was no significant data out from the US or Europe Yesterday.

     

    Today’s market movers

    • The main focus on the market today will be on the UK with the budget and the BOE minutes out this morning. With speculation increasing that we will raise interest rates soon it will be important to see how the committee have voted. If the votes have moved further towards a raise we could see a bullish day for GBP.
    • We are expected to see encouraging signs from the budget today which could add further to GBP strength.
    • In the US this afternoon, we will have data released for new home sales MoM which is expected to come out worse than previous and is seen a key indicator for economy recovery . However the month of February is seen as seasonally lower.