Despite some weakness late in the day Monday, the FTSE 100 has moved higher again this morning and in doing so moved back above the big psychological level of 7000. The pound has experienced a quiet start to the week in the absence of any fundamental developments and remains little changed against many of its major peers.
Carney to face the House of Lords
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney will testify before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee later this afternoon on the economic consequences of the Brexit vote, in an event that could trigger some volatility in the pound. Recent economic indicators have suggested that the economy has shrugged off the initial shock of the vote in June, and this viewpoint was supported by Mr. Carney in a speech during which he claimed the central bank’s swift and decisive action had played an important role in dampening the shock. With third-quarter GDP data out on Thursday expected to show growth of 0.3% for the three months post-Brexit vote, doom-mongers warnings of an imminent recession appear misplaced. However news from the continent that the EU-Canada trade pact was thrown into chaos last night after the Wallonia region in Belgium voted against a deal that has been in the offing for seven years should serve as a timely reminder that there remains many pitfalls ahead in the UK’s separation from the EU.
Miners lead the rally
Mining stocks are the best performing on the UK benchmark today, with Anglo American leading the pack and rising by almost 4% after the latest production report that saw most of its output targets left unchanged being warmly received by investors. Antofagasta, Rio Tinto and Glencore have all followed suit in showing sizeable gains since the open. GKN has lagged the leaders today with the engineering group off by approximately 2.8% at the time of writing. Whitbread, the owner of Costa coffee, is also lower on the day and off by 2.6% at present.
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AUD/USD remains under pressure above 0.6400
AUD/USD managed to regain some composure and rebounded markedly from Tuesday’s YTD lows in the sub-0.6400 region ahead of the release of the Australian labour market report on Thursday.
EUR/USD faces decent contention around 1.0600
The knee-jerk in the Greenback reignited some buying interest in the risk complex and pushed EUR/USD to three-day highs near 1.0680, rapidly leaving behind the recent yearly low around 1.0600.
Gold eases despite risk-off mood
Gold trades in a relatively tight range near $2,390 in the second half of the day on Wednesday. In the absence of high-tier data releases, investors keep a close eye on headlines surrounding the Iran-Israel conflict.
Ethereum trades around the $3,000 support following a surge in validator queue
Ethereum (ETH) continued a sideways movement on Wednesday as investors seemed to be waiting for an upward or downward price catalyst. Despite the price stagnancy, the ETH validator queue - possibly fueled by the DeFi restaking boom - rose sharply.
Australia unemployment rate expected to rise back to 3.9% in March as February boost fades
Australia will publish its monthly employment report first thing Thursday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is expected to announce the country added measly 7.2K new positions in March after the outstanding 116.5K jobs created in February.