The pound lost some of its shine as Friday went on, pegged back by a disappointing UK retail sales reading.
January retail sales figure was expected to come in at 0.5%, a sharp rebound from December’s dreary -1.5%; instead it arrived at just 0.1%, with the squeeze on consumer spending caused by low wage growth and sky-high inflation continuing to take its toll. This caused cable to drop back by 0.2%, taking it away from $1.41; however, the fact that the euro also dipped 0.2% against the dollar having been in the green just after the bell suggests that the pound’s losses aren’t solely related to the retail sales miss.
The losses seen by both sterling and its single currency peer were a great boost to the European indices. The FTSE climbed just shy of 50 points, taking it above 7280 for the first time in more than a week, while the DAX rose 0.7% and the CAC 0.9%.
The Dow Jones is all set to join in with these gains this afternoon. The futures are pointing to a 100 point rise, one that would leave the Dow tickling 25300. Having dealt with string of hawkish figures across the week there isn’t much to challenge the index this Friday; the building permits reading is set to fall from 1.30 million to 1.29 million month-on-month, while consumer sentiment is forecast to slip from 95.7 to 95.4.
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