Another weekend full of contradictory Brexit headlines has left the pound worried and in the red this Monday morning.
Despite EU claims that there has been a breakthrough over fishing rights – something in and of itself denied by UK sources – Monday’s reports have Boris Johnson ready to abandon negotiations ‘within hours’.
Though we’ve been at the brink many times over the last four and a half years, it seems that Brexit talks are finally reaching their crescendo, for better or worse. Some reports suggest that if both sides don’t announce a commitment to keep talking by the end of the day, then ‘no deal’ is the only option left.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess how sterling feels about all this. Cable sank 1.3%, tumbling away from last Friday’s $1.35-crossing 2 and a half year highs to hit a 2-week-plus low of $1.327. Against the euro, meanwhile, the currency dropped 1%, forcing it below €1.097.
The pound’s pronounced concerns meant that the FTSE was the only major index to avoid notable losses after the bell.
Whereas the FTSE dropped 0.2%, kicking it under 6,550, the DAX shed 0.7%, leaving it teetering at the edge of 13,200, with the CAC sinking 0.9%.
And following an all-time high of 30,218 last Friday, the Dow Jones is heading for a 0.5% decline, one that would still crucially keep it above 30,050.
These losses come as Reuters reports the US is preparing new sanctions on Chinese officials – a final stoking of the fires by a Trump administration whose foreign policy has largely been defined by a combative relationship with Beijing.
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