Sterling still coolest cat in town
Striking the same lightly negative, wholly uninterested tone as on Monday, the European markets shrugged their way through Tuesday’s open.
The FTSE continued its broadly unruffled start to the week, dipping just 10 or so points to squat near 6950. Things could have been a lot worse. A 1.1% pullback from Brent Crude left BP (LON:BP) and Shell (LON:RDSa) with a sour look on their faces, while its miners incurred a series of losses either side of 1%.
The eurozone was similarly subdued, the DAX and CAC falling 0.2% apiece, leaving them dancing around 11100 and 4850 respectively.
Sterling, still the coolest cat in town despite Britain’s political class doing the worst possible job of an already nightmare situation, slipped 0.1% against the dollar while opening unchanged against the euro. The latest Brexit developments, be it May’s tepid ‘plan B’ or Labour’s calls for a Commons vote on holding a second referendum, haven’t done a whole lot for the currency, the pound continuing to wait and see what happens once the dust settles.
To keep it preoccupied the UK is kindly providing some jobs data for sterling to tuck into. Wage growth, which has been on a right tear in the last few months, is expected to hold at 3.3% (including bonuses), with the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1% and the claimant count change dropping from 21.9k to 20.1k.
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