The pound perked up as Monday morning went on, despite having little news to actually work with.
Cable climbed 0.3%, lifting above $1.31, while against the euro, sterling jumped 0.4%, allowing the currency to re-cross €1.13. While the pound still has a way to go before it has recovered all of its post-Bank of England dovish rate hike losses, this at least shows investors are willing to re-enter the fray after being scared off last Thursday.
This did mean that the FTSE didn’t get to enjoy the commodity sector’s Brent Crude and copper fuelled gains. Instead the UK index dipped 0.1%, sending it back to the familiar 7550 level it spent so much of October trading around.
Despite the euro’s dip against the pound and the dollar, and a slightly better than forecast region-wide services PMI (at 55.0 against the 54.9 initial estimate), the eurozone indices just weren’t in the mood to do much this Monday. The DAX and IBEX 35 both fell by 0.2%, while the CAC slipped by 0.1%.
Looking to this afternoon and there is precious little for the US markets to contend with. That explains why the Dow Jones is facing such a limp open, with the futures pointing to a 0.1% slide when the bell rings on Wall Street. Still, that keeps the Dow above 23500, meaning the slightest change in fortunes would send the US index to yet another all-time high.
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