As last week came to an end, we saw sterling rates drop off after the release of some weak Retail Sales figures out of the UK, if you read my last article then this wouldn't have been a surprise for you! Fortunately, as markets opened on Monday morning we had seen that the pound had retraced slightly against most majors and we were back to the rates we saw on Friday morning.
After a nice quiet week without any politics, it now seems that Brexit will return to the headlines this week as the House of Lords debate the Bill that was passed through Parliament two weeks ago, though they are not able to block the bill, it is possible that they can stall the bill and ask MP's to make amendments. The House will vote on this on Tuesday evening, and as long as we see no real objections then the certainty should help the pound.
Staying with Tuesday, BoE Governor, Mark Carney will be speaking in Parliament at 09:30, it is unclear what his agenda will be, but due to the recent spells of weak data we have seen come out of the UK economy, I do personally expect to see a hawkish speech from him, which could possibly weaken the pound if there is specific mention of Brexit having an adverse affect on the economy. If you are looking to make a trade on Tuesday it may be wise to utilise stop losses, as the markets can go either way.
Moving on to Wednesday morning, the UK is set to release GDP figures, and the Eurozone will release their inflation figures. We are not expecting to see any change at all from forecasts on these, however with the way UK data has been coming out, I think it would be safe to assume that we could see a slight change in the UK's actual GDP figures.
The rest of this week is due to be pretty quiet, so if anything, political news from the around the world could potentially have more of an impact than actual Economic data after Wednesday. If you have any upcoming transactions then please don't hesitate to contact me.