Eurozone data still poor

Today's Highlights

• Sterling buoyed by BOE comments  

• RBNZ weakens NZ Dollar

• Eurozone data still poor

FX Market Overview

Happy St George's Day everyone. We are starting the day with some traditional English things. We have discussed the weather, tutted at politicians and now we are eating scones with clotted cream and jam and the debate is raging over whether you should put the cream or jam on first. Could anything be more English? We should do this more often.

The foreign exchange market didn't have a lot to go on. The Bank of England minutes were a damp squib. If anyone wasn't expecting a bit of concern over a bounce in inflation, they haven't been paying attention. That view was expressed in spite of 0.0% inflation right now. The BOE committee also expressed a rather optimistic tone with regard to the European economy and that is obviously important to the UK's recovery. We will get some more info on the strength of the UK recovery today with retail sales and public sector borrowing data. Upbeat forecasts are in the majority, so beware of poor data because that would knock the pound.

The US data diary is a diminutive one today. A bit of housing data and the weekly jobless claims figures will probably not ruffle the Dollar's feathers too much.

We have had a slew of manufacturing indices from across the Eurozone this morning. They all came out on the negative side of forecasts and the euro has shifted to a weaker position as a result.

The overnight news from New Zealand is that the Kiwi Dollar weakened when a reserve bank of New Zealand official commented that interest rates were more likely to fall than rise in the months ahead. That's at odds with previously expressed concerns over the overheating housing market but maybe the RBNZ has some other measures up its sleeve.

So that's about your lot for today. Have a very Happy St George's Day. It seems kind of odd that we should have adopted as our Patron Saint a man who was born in Syria to a Turkish and Palestinian parents, who served in the army of an Italian city-state and ultimately died in Turkey. But we did.