With no clear way out of the Brexit labyrinth in sight, sterling struggled out of bed on Thursday, while the European indices nudged higher despite the overnight fears surrounding the global economy.
Not a single one of the 8 options listed in Wednesday’s indicative votes managed to secure a majority, with the customs union and confirmatory public vote routes coming closest. Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, meanwhile, appeared to be gathering support from previously intransigent Brexiters like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, only for the DUP to throw a rather sizeable spanner in the works by stating they cannot accept the deal, once again casting doubt on the position of those announced ERG-switchers.
The ongoing, never-ending and seemingly unbreakable sense of confusion and lack of clarity left cable hanging on at $1.313 having hit $1.327 at points on Wednesday, while against the euro the pound was back under €1.169, a whole cent off of yesterday’s 22-month peak.
The weary state of sterling, alongside a decent showing from its commodity stocks, allowed the FTSE to climb 0.7%, enough to push the UK index to a near one-week peak of 7240. This as the DAX and CAC added 0.4% and 0.2% respectively. All of this comes as something of a surprise given that US 10-year Treasury yields tumbled to a 15-month low overnight, news that caused issues for the Asian markets.
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