As this month comes to an end, we have seen plenty of events move the marker, such as PM Theresa May’s speech, the Supreme Court verdict for Article 50 and President Trump’s first few days in office.
To begin with, the Supreme Court verdict outlined that the government must introduce a bill into Parliament to outline their plans for triggering Article 50. This was great news as now MP’s will be able to have their say.
This, of course, doesn’t mean it will delay Brexit or will stop it from happening, but the market has reacted well to this news knowing that the plans won’t be made behind closed doors.
The Brexit Bill will be introduced to Parliament on the 31st January and MP’s will be given one week to scrutinise and debate the bill. The outcome of this is expected to be that MP’s vote in favour of pushing the bill through and the timetable of triggering Article 50 by the end of March remains the same.
Now onto President Trump, his first few days have left investors unsure. He has been very quick to start moving on all promises he made to his voters (imagine… a politician doing what he said he would do!) and has also started to spark problems with other countries. We have seen GBP/USD exchange rates up to around 1.26 since his inauguration which is great news for those of you sending dollars overseas, this is a move upwards of around 4% since the beginning of January.
On Friday, PM Theresa May visited President Trump and they announced that the meeting went well, with both confirming the “most special relationship” between the two nations.
Since this meeting, both Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson have stated that the PM should cancel President Trump’s state visit amid the global outcry over his latest immigration order. So far, the PM has failed to condemn President Trump’s latest policy and stated that “it is up to the US to decide its own policy”
Now stepping away from politics, a confidential IMF report has warned that the current bailout plan for Greece is “unsustainable” with Greek public debt spiralling out of control, and no amount of reform capable of fixing the situation.
This could be the beginning of more problems for Greece, for those of you who remember, Greece debt problems were what pushed the GBP/EUR exchange rate to 1.44 in 2015.
Through Monday and Tuesday, we will see a host of economic data from Europe including inflation data, retail sales, unemployment data and Mario Draghi speaking on Tuesday.
BoE Governor Mark Carney will be speaking following the rate decision and inflation report on Thursday, this speech will be key as the Governor has spoken very positively about the UK economy as of recent and I think the market will benefit from hearing about his opinions this week.