GBP

Not a very good day for Sterling dropping against all of its major peers. The main reason for this yesterday was the news that the UK treasury will take full responsibility for Scotland’s debt if they vote for independence in the upcoming referendum. However, it is expected that Scotland will reimburse the UK for some of the debt payments.

USD

GBP

Not a very good day for Sterling dropping against all of its major peers. The main reason for this yesterday was the news that the UK treasury will take full responsibility for Scotland’s debt if they vote for independence in the upcoming referendum. However, it is expected that Scotland will reimburse the UK for some of the debt payments.

USD

The US Congress has reached an agreement aimed at keeping the federal government open through 30th September and avoiding another government shutdown. This is expected to formally go through on Saturday. Also the US treasury posted its biggest December budget surplus on record. The government brought in $53.2b more in revenue than it spent last month, its first surplus for December since 2007.

EUR

Italy’s manufacturing sector is inching out of its slump, according to new data yesterday Italian industrial output rose for a third month running in November, rising 0.3% month-in-month in November. October’s reading was also hiked to  a 0.7%, from  a 0.5%.In Greece they are still seeing deflation, marking nearly of falling prices.  However, there was a slowdown in the rate at which prices were decreasing with CPI at -1.7% year on year, compared with -2.9% previously.

Today

The main focus for today in the UK is inflation, with CPI figures due out. Year on Year is expected to stay the same at 2.1%. Any rise in inflation should be limited by the fact that price discounting on the high street appears to have been very generous over the Christmas period.In the Eurozone there are industrial production figures out. Year on Year we are expected to see quite a big jump up from 0.2% to 1.4%. We already know that production rose by 1.9% in Germany, 1.3% in France, 1.1% in Spain and 0.3% in Italy so we should see a strong figure there.For the USA we have retail sales figures out. Month on Month there is expected to be a big drop 0.7% to 0.1%.
Key Announcements

09:30- GBP- Consumer price index (Dec) expected to stay flat at 2.1%

10:00- EUR – Industrial Production (Nov) expected to grow 1.4% 

13:00 – USD- Retail sales figures (Dec) growth to fall to just .1%